by Keith McMean
What is the difference between social media and social marketing? I firmly believe this goes back to the very start of social media when in a very short space of time we had the likes of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. There were few others, but for this post I will stick to the main ones popping up and grabbing our attention. Then, Google Plus and Pinterest came along and the game changed again. Please don’t do what a lot of others have done and discount email marketing, it’s still one of the best ways of reaching people who care. During this series, I will go into more detail about the pros and cons of each, and how you can maximize each to improve your marketing strategies.
Now, what I am going to do is take you through what I believe are the main differences between social media and social marketing.
Social Media: To me this has always been about the tools, email broadcast, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google Plus and Pinterest I left one important ingredient out, Blogs…how could I, well I have been ill. Doesn’t matter what your weapon of choice is, WordPress (mine), Blogger, Typepad etc they all do a similar job. These are the tools of our trade. Very much like newspapers, TV and Radio they broadcast and distribute the news to the people who want to listen to what we have to say. These have been the game changers in marketing over the past five years or so.
Social Marketing: This is a whole different ball game, this is how we get out listeners, community or tribe to take action on what we do. It’s no good having a great message, story, service or product if no one is taking action. So how do you get people to ‘take action’? Well this is a skill in its self, just like traditional marketing is. Now some would say it’s the same, but believe me it’s not, I have seen some great, what I would call traditional marketers, fail miserably online and that goes the other way too I might add. I think each one has subtle differences and should be approached in different ways.
Why do I think that? Well this isn’t a way to get you to sign up for anything but this was one of the things I really gave some though to over the last few days. I think the main difference is timing! You see in traditional marketing everything is at a slower pace, not much slower I admit, but slower none the less. You have to have all the copy and imagery in place before your message goes out, this can be the same online too, no difference to what I am doing now, a careful measured approach. But online Twitter gives you the chance to put out a ‘headline’ message instantly and we see them every day. I will explain what this means to you and your business once inside the SMA as there is just too much to go into here. This is a very high level view of one aspect of marketing so don’t take this as ‘that’s all there is to it’…it’s not!!
But one thing I do know is…marketing has changed forever!
So what has this to do with me being ill? Well a lot really. When I first though about the Social Marketing side of the web not a lot of people were doing much about it, now there are a few, but as in everything some good…some…not so!
My idea was to give you a head start on a whole new way of marketing, yes we will go through the tools and how to use them, but what I really want to show you is how to market your business to a whole new audience, a global audience if you like. You see most start too far down the line, they think that we already know what we’re doing because these ‘tools’ have been around for a while know. What they don’t realise is not everyone does when it comes to this stuff, so that’s really why I started the SMA to take you through social marketing right from the very start and in a structured way that helps you learn all about marketing your business online.
Now some will say that this post is nothing more than a glorified advert for my Social Marketing Academy, but let’s face it if you have read this far then you ARE INTERESTED in knowing more and take this as your first lesson in online marketing: keep your audience engaged, interested and entertained and you won’t go far wrong.
If you are interested and you do want to know more about the Social Marketing Academy follow this link.
Have a great day and please leave me a comment on what you are up to…
