Your Ultimate Guide to Social Media and Digital Marketing

The main difference between social media and digital marketing is that social media marketing serves as one of the many different channels of digital marketing. 

However, while many people believe that social media marketing is the same as digital marketing, it’s simply not 100% true. 

Digital marketing encompasses many other channels, including social media, as we’ll explain in depth below. 

What is Digital Marketing?

In essence, digital marketing is a form of marketing that focuses on promoting a product or brand and building awareness online using the many different digital channels. 

There are two main elements of digital marketing:

• Online Channels: These include search engine marketing (SEM) which includes SEO and Pay-per-click advertising; website marketing; mobile marketing (think Apple Store and Google Play); video marketing, online banner advertising; social media marketing; and email marketing. 

• Offline Digital Channels: Offline digital marketing examples include SMS, Radio, Television, as well as indoor and outdoor billboards. 

While there are a number of digital marketing components, the average campaign includes mostly elements from the field of internet marketing. Most campaigns will feature:

• Email Marketing: Entails promoting products or services through email marketing strategies

• Search Engine Marketing: This is done through SEO and a content strategy, or via paid search advertising (PPC), which is dominated by Google AdWords

• Mobile Advertising: This entails the development of native apps and submitting them to the Apple Store or the Google Play Store

• Social Media Marketing: This entails using paid advertising on the different social media platforms

What is Social Media Marketing?

For the last few years, social media has become much of a buzzword in Internet Marketing. 

The new generation of social media platforms, mainly Twitter and Facebook, have essentially changed the way we interact, socialize, and shop. 

They have also introduced new marketing channels for the world digital marketing. 

Social media is the general term used to describe platforms designed to bring people together for communication and exchange of information. 

The most popular social media platforms include Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. 

Social media marketing encompasses the different methods of promoting a service or product through the available social media channels. 

Generally, there are two main ways to conduct a social media campaign. The first has to do with building connections, fans, or followers by sharing content, engaging with users, and running contests. 

The second way is via paid advertising. You can use Google Ads, Facebook Ads, or Promoted Accounts on Twitter to advertise on the corresponding platform. 

The Difference Between Digital Marketing and Social Media Marketing

So far, it should be clear that social media is just a component, albeit a major one, of digital marketing. 

To help make the difference even clearer, let’s look at some of the ways digital marketing is different from social media marketing. 

1. Platforms

Digital marketing generally involves marketing on multiple digital platforms, ranging from TV and radio to social media and search engines. 

This way, digital marketing is more encompassing and is typically able to reach a diverse range of internet users. 

Social media marketing is only limited to marketing on social media platforms.

As such, the rest of the internet marking methods such as banner advertising is not social media marketing. Still, all forms of internet marketing including social media are considered digital marketing.

2. Engagement

One of the key reasons why social media marketing is quite popular right now is that it’s the only channel that allows engagement with real users. 

This could be through comments and likes, which are critical in gauging a product or service in the eyes of a customer. It also allows for interaction with the customer and real-time feedback. 

While other forms of digital marketing can generate feedback, they are mainly one-way channels and the feedback is usually based on assumptions and estimations. 

Social media gives you a direct like to draw direct data from the real world clients. 

3. Audience

If you are a digital marketing company or a digital marketer, one of the worst mistakes you can do is to assume that everyone is on social media due to a large number of people on these platforms. 

Keep in mind that while there’s a large percentage of people active on social media, a substantial number of people keep off these platforms for different reasons. 

As a business, it’s important to reach out to these prospects as well. 

Even if they aren’t on social media, they are highly likely to be on other digital platforms. The beauty of digital marketing is that it doesn’t isolate these users. 

4. Speed

Social media marketing easily beats other forms of digital marketing when it comes to the speed of reaching the customers. Unlike the rest of the digital platforms, social media allows businesses to stay connected to a large number of customers. 

This way, conveying a message to the target audience only takes a click. Other digital platforms typically involve lengthy processes that are simply unsuitable for immediate promotion. 

5. Strategy

As a business in the process of deciding the internet marketing strategy to use, it will generally come up with a rather comprehensive strategy that accounts for everything from how it can create awareness in the TVs, radios, mobile devices, and online. That’s because digital marketing emphasizes on reaching audiences on all or most digital platforms.

Most social media strategies focus on how best businesses can engage with the users. 

Some of the things that come up include how to best listen and speak with the followers and how to build a strong following. In that case, social media strategies are a bit more low-level. 

Which is More Important, Digital Marketing or Social Media?

Well, it all depends on the type of business, products, and services that you intend to promote. There are a few cases where the different forms of digital marketing are apter when it comes to building awareness than social media. 

Nonetheless, social media is an absolute must for every brand, product, or service that wants to reach a wide audience.

Still, digital marketing is the alpha of marketing, and it will continue to gain more ground in the future. Social media is a newer way of connecting with people, and as a critical part of digital marketing, it’s here to provide new ways of finding new customers, engaging them, and promoting products. 

Need digital marketing services in New Orleans? Get in touch with Infintech Designs today!

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