What Is the Difference Between Traditional Marketing and Social Media Marketing?

Jun 23

With its number of users and its importance in business’ marketing strategies ever-increasing, social media is central to our everyday lives. In many ways, social media marketing is merely an evolution of traditional marketing; where people once discovered new products in newspapers, looked at billboards on their way to work, or watched television adverts, they now use social media to consume media, discover new brands and communicate conveniently.

But there are many other ways in which social media marketing differs from traditional marketing, and plenty of benefits to implementing social media into your marketing, brand awareness or e-commerce strategy. We asked Ravi Shukle, UK and Ireland Manager at Agorapulse, for his thoughts.

what are ‘traditional marketing’ and ‘social media marketing’?

Traditional marketing refers to the marketing of a product or service via a medium other than the internet. For example, it may involve building and executing a strategy via newspaper or magazine ads, door-to-door leaflets, or television or radio adverts.

Social media marketing, on the other hand, refers to the marketing of a product or service via social media, and comes under the broader bracket of digital marketing. This type of marketing leverages popular social media platforms used by its audience, such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, to build a brand presence, promote products and engage with customers.

What is the key difference between traditional marketing and social media marketing?

The mediums used in traditional marketing and social media marketing are clearly different and can achieve different results for businesses. But what does Agorapulse’s Ravi Shukle think is the key difference between the two?

“The key difference between traditional marketing and digital/social media marketing is that traditional marketing relies on a broader approach when it comes to targeting,” says Ravi. “Magazines and newspapers, while they have demographics in terms of readers, it's really impossible to say who specifically consumes the content. Where digital marketing and social media stand out is that they offer the ability to target your ideal customers specifically based on interests, gender, ages and even location. This makes it a lot more effective to deliver messages to specific audiences and to also be more timely with your messaging as you can choose the exact days and times you want your marketing to be seen.”

So What else makes social media such a great marketing tool?

“Two words: building relationships. Social media has really helped us bridge the gap with the customer. We now have the unique ability to talk to our customers on a one-to-one basis. The reason this is so powerful, especially in social media marketing, is that it helps us understand our customers’ needs better. The better we understand their needs, the better we can market content, products and services to meet those needs. We can actually have an open dialogue with our customers which in turn helps us to build more loyal and long term customers for those brands who take the time to engage.”

Are there still solely ‘traditional’ marketing jobs out there?

Most people who go down the marketing career path will learn about the importance and significance of social media in any brand’s overarching marketing, brand awareness or e-commerce strategy. So are there still job roles out there focusing only on ‘traditional’ marketing, without any digital or social media elements?

“Of course, this will always be the case,” says Ravi, “However, it's important to distinguish that in order to have a successful marketing campaign, it's important to incorporate digital into your marketing. As we can never assume customers only like to engage with your business through one touch point, i.e. magazines or social media. They may prefer email, leaflets or even a phone call. So having all these touch points accessible will help keep your company top of mind and also help to increase your ability to get leads through multiple channels. It's also important that if these departments or roles are separated, that both teams work closely together to make sure their marketing and messaging is in sync.”

Find out more about what a job in social media marketing looks like and what skills are required in our article: How to Get Into a Career in Social Media Marketing.