Content Marketing & Social Media Marketing Aren’t They The Same?
Not many are familiar with the term Content Marketing, but almost everyone knows a little something about social media marketing. When asked about content marketing, people usually assume it is synonymous to social Media Marketing. The reason for that is quite simple – You need content for social media marketing and you need a social media platform to put across your message (which is ‘content’). You can’t have one without the other. Due to this overlap, not many realise that there are distinct differences between the two forms of marketing.
Content marketing and social media marketing fall under internet marketing, and both are equally important components of digital marketing. To better understand content marketing and social media marketing, let us take a look at these two entities individually and focus on how these two differ from each other.
Content Marketing is a form of marketing which is used to inform, educate, publish and distribute content in order to attract the right target audience and generate leads which expands an organisations customer base and increases their visibility online as well as offline. Blogs, articles, Press Releases and Websites are some of the major content marketing platforms commonly used. The main aim of content marketing is to help companies create valuable content that transforms prospects to customers and ensures sustainable brand loyalty.
Social Media Marketing is nothing but the use of social media platforms to promote a company’s product or service. Some of the best social media platforms are Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, Interest, Google plus, Quora and the list just goes on. Social media helps organizations earn traffic and leads to their company website by using the right platform to target the right audience. It allows them to interact with thousands of online audience and prospective clients and help their business gain recognition in order to build relations and communities online.
As you can see, there is not much of a difference between the two, especially when it comes to the focus of both forms of marketing – which is to increase brand awareness and customer base. But subtle differences are enough to distinctively define the two forms of marketing.
In social media marketing, content is developed based on the social media platform used to engage with the audience. For example, in twitter, the number of words you use in each tweet is limited; hence the focus is more on images, audio and videos; i.e. content designed to let people share short message with others. While on Facebook, in contrast, is a social networking site that allows for sharing and uploading full blown content, updates, photos, videos and a variety of other activities.
This means that the content is modified with respect to the social media platform used. Whereas, in content marketing, the focus is on quality content and not the medium used to publish. Blogs, articles and websites are examples of Content marketing platforms where the only requirement is to create content that engages with the right kind of audience and that makes them want more. This means that the social media platform is modified with respect to the size and quality of the content.
Understanding the differences between both forms of marketing now calls for another question – which form of marketing should the importance be given to? Content marketing or social media marketing? Well, I would say both. You can’t have one without the other.
Writing a blog or creating a website and not doing anything about it will lead to nothing. We need social media platforms to promote the websites and blogs to increase traffic. At the same time, quality content is required in social media platforms in order to make the right audience want to ‘Like’, ‘Share’, ‘Tweet’ or ‘Re-Tweet’.
Social media is the prime vehicle on the internet that drives your content to the correct destination. Social media, along with quality content engages with the targeted audience, providing organizations with a global publishing platform that allows them to reach out and establish brand awareness.
So, it is my belief that content marketing and social media complement each other perfectly. Rather than choosing between the two, why not use both and make your business stronger? It is crucial for organizations to align their content marketing campaigns with respect to the social media platform in order to make their business a knockout success.