People often confuse social marketing with social media marketing, but what is the difference between the two?

This guide has been put together by Viral Seeding, if you’d like to find out more about how we can help with promoting your video, then get in touch.

Approach

Social marketing – First, understanding the audience, then building a campaign specifically around them.

Social media marketing – Introducing a new or existing audience to a product or idea.

Goal

Social marketing – alter or maintain how people behave.

Social media marketing – increase awareness, clickthroughs or perceptions.

Targeting

Social marketing – very focused, often niche.

Social media marketing – Broader, e.g. males aged 44-65 in the UK.

Reporting

Social marketing – measure the impact and outcome on individuals

Social media marketing – analytical data, eg how many views, clickthroughs etc

Social marketing campaigns can take a lot longer than a standard social media marketing campaign. Time is taken to understand an audience before the campaign, as well as the impact the campaign has had on individuals once the campaign is over. Social marketing can be a hugely effective way of reaching a small, niche audience, however it can prove to be a longer and costlier process. If highly detailed data is essential to what you’re looking for, and views and clickthroughs are not the end goal, then this may be something to explore.

The overall goal of social marketing is to change or maintain how individuals behave, unlike a social media campaign which is to increase general awareness. Because of this, reporting for social marketing is thorough, and analyses the impact the campaign had.

Social marketing can be effective, but if you are looking to draw clickthroughs to your website, increase views of your video or raise awareness of a brand/product, then social media and influencer marketing is more than likely the better option

Check out what Viral Seeding can offer you for a social media marketing campaign by checking out our homepage.