Social Media Marketing Strategy 101: Definitions
I had an interesting conversation with someone a few weeks ago about the definition of social media and social media marketing. I think it’s important to explore the definitions to ensure that we’re on the same page.
I posted this question to my different social networks and here are couple of responses that came back:
I would define social media and social marketing, as an attempt to connect with a niche portion of the population, which utilizes digital channels of communication. These individuals were formally unavailable and couldn’t have been harnessed through traditional marketing avenues. This day and age, it has become increasingly important to reach out to these individuals, especially in light of the expansion of social networking. Consequently, social platforms now grant businesses the ability to accomplish this with ease. By establishing more transparency and openness, companies can ultimately harness potential customers that were previously unattainable. – Ryan Schoenefeld via LinkedIn
akornblattSocial Media are the tools, Social Marketing is what you use Social Media for.
akornblatt Social media are the tools used in social network and social marketing, which are both unique as well
Social Media and Social Marketing Defined – Simply
While Wikipedia provides a fairly academic definition of social media, here’s my simple definition: Social media is when you and I use online applications, such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. to create, share, and distribute content (e.g. Video, blog posts, etc.).
If Social Media is the tools, then Social Media Marketing is the toolbox. From my perspective, Social Media Marketing leverages social media to achieve key marketing objectives and engage in conversations with key constituents.
Conclusions
Based on these definition, my goal with these series of posts is to explore how organizations can leverage a social media marketing strategy to achieve marketing and communications goals. Like all marketing strategies, this requires different components to come together under this umbrella, such as public relations, lead generation, customer relations, analyst relations and more. Hence, I am changing this from “Social Marketing Strategy 101” to “Social Media Marketing Strategy 101.”
Do you agree or disagree? Let me know.
Other Posts in the Series
1. Social Media Strategy 101: Are You Ready?
2. Social Media Strategy 101: Which Persona Helps Tell Your Story?
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This is a good definition, thanks for sharing.
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