By Jake Hugo
Introduction
According to Matt Davies Stockton, many people confuse the term digital marketing with social media marketing. However, they are not the same. Digital marketing can be considered an umbrella term for all your online marketing efforts while social media marketing can be considered a part of digital marketing. Both have different scopes and areas of focus.
The Differences
Here are a few key differences between digital marketing and social media marketing:
- Digital marketing and its elements – Digital marketing extends to the promotion of brands, and their products and services using digital devices and digital channels, both online and offline. Popular online digital marketing channels include search engine marketing, pay-per-click advertising, content marketing, video marketing, email marketing, affiliate marketing, and social media marketing.
Popular offline digital marketing channels include LED billboards in high-traffic areas, online radio ads and radio show promotions, phone marketing through texting, cold-calling, in-app ads, and cable TV commercials and streaming services.
Thus, as you can see, social media marketing is just one of the elements of digital marketing as a whole.
- Social media marketing and its elements – Social media marketing is limited to the use of social media channels and forums such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, TikTok, Reddit, and Quora.
The goal of social media marketing is not only to improve selling performance but to monitor customer engagement, keep track of market trends, analyze and improve brand awareness, and more.
- The goal and effectiveness of digital marketing – The goal of digital marketing is to ensure a global reach of your customer base through both online and offline channels. Unlike traditional marketing channels, a strategic and well-executed digital marketing plan helps to improve the cost-effectiveness of the advertising and improves the success of advertising goals.
Digital marketing is also utilized to improve the versatility of the advertising mediums used and increase accessibility. Plus, it helps to monitor and improve the effectiveness of the advertising through targeting and personalization since it is highly measurable.
- The goal of social media marketing – Many people believe that the primary goal of social media marketing is the advertising of company products and services by implementing effective social media content promotion strategies. However, it is much more.
Social media marketing is one of the best tools to build a loyal brand following and track insightful data about the competition including the marketing strategies and keywords utilized by them so that they can be followed or improved upon. Plus, it helps the brand to interact with its loyal fan base on a more personal level which helps to build brand image and track customer sentiment towards the brand.
Finally, it is an excellent tool that is used to gather data and insights about their active customer base and potential customers for better marketing efforts in the future.
Conclusion
Matt Davies Stockton suggests you realize the importance of using both digital marketing and social media marketing channels to promote your brand, its products, and its service. One is not better than the other and instead, complements each other.
