Social media marketing is a paid advertising platform. You pay for the traffic you get or for the goals you set. Think of the sponsored ads you see when you scroll through your social feed. Social media management, on the other hand, uses the free platform to spread your brand’s message.
The traffic you earn is free. Think of the posts a company publishes on its page that appear in your feed because you follow it. It’s important to note that when it comes to social media, the difference between marketing and management goes far beyond the simple difference between paying for an ad and having one appear where clicks are free.
These are in fact two different marketing tactics, designed for different purposes.
One of the advantages of paid media is that they “pay”. With the right budget, you can start getting more exposure than your competitors in a single day. Social media management, on the other hand, is a lengthy process that can take months or even years to reach the point where it generates significant commercial returns.
Strategically, you’ll want to do both. But right from the start, you should know that the first results will come mainly from social media marketing.
Budgets and time factors influence goal setting and execution. But the real differences between marketing and social media management lie in the tactics and types of content you create. Consider that essentially, social media platforms, like Facebook or Instagram, are not intrinsically advertising platforms.
When people search on Google, they are often looking for products, services and brands. Not all searches are transactional, but consumers expect to be hit by promotional content.
Social media – as the name suggests, is about friends and social relationships. It’s where we connect with our tribe, the people with whom we have common backgrounds and interests.
On social media, people don’t have strong buying intentions, although this is beginning to change. They are not intrinsically intended as shopping or trading platforms.
This means that your social media management – if it is to generate any kind of engagement – must not be promotional. People don’t engage with commercial social messages.
Your brand should act more like a friend than a business by sharing things that are useful, funny, unique or inspiring.
Red Bull is a brand that does remarkable work in this area. Its lifestyle and extreme sports content combines high-energy activities with its brand and generates considerable engagement on social media:
An effective tactic for sneaking in a promotion is to use an influencer on social media. Influencer marketing is huge right now, we can talk about that in another article, but just know that using influencers in your niche is extremely powerful.
Collaborating with them can introduce your brand and your products or services to new audiences while building trust.
Social media management uses the concept of the brand as a friend. This works when you’re particularly targeting millennial and Gen Y audiences. In most cases, if you try to sell through organic content, you won’t get any engagement, which means your content won’t appear on anyone’s news feed.
Social media marketing can be a little more promotional in terms of content, with different tactics. The first is to create audiences from the data you already have to try and reach new people who might be interested in your brand.
For example, you could create a list of customers who have converted on your website, then create a similar audience to target similar people with content they’ll find interesting.
Or a local company can create an audience based on a life event, such as people who have recently moved, and target them in a specific geographic area.
Much of social media marketing is actually retargeting. For example, you can create personalized audiences that display ads only to people who have already engaged with your Facebook page or watched part of a video.
As these audiences are more targeted and engaged with your brand, your content can be more promotional and include a call to action. It works smarter to give you a better return on investment.
Conclusions
Social media marketing and management will be more effective if you create a brand story and voice that go beyond simply presenting the benefits and features of your product.
Young people express themselves through brands and commit to those with engaging personalities. They use brands to show who they are. If a brand touches them on this level, they’ll engage and share that content.
Snapchat’s geographic filters are a case in point. People share branded content when it reflects the image they want to project of themselves. If you want your social media marketing strategy to be effective, this is the type of content you need to develop.
Traditional marketing, with its brand-centric message based on persuasion, doesn’t reach this audience. People share experiences and stories on social media.
Tailor your strategy to these experiences, and you’ll have a good chance of exposing your brand to a large audience, then using your ads to move them through your sales funnel to the point of conversion.
