Coming across terms digital marketing and social media marketing services may confuse you, especially if you think both terms are just synonyms for the other. I mean, social media apps such as Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube are digital platforms, right? So they must be considered part of digital marketing too!

While there is some truth, we will explore key differences between both terms today.

Digital Media Marketing

In a nutshell, digital marketing promotes your business’s products and services across a wide variety of electronic media. While these also include social media apps, it also uses traditional and even physical methods, such as:

• Networking. 
• Webinars.
• Phones and video.
• Blogs or online publications.
• TV ads or commercials.
• Radio ads or commercials.
• Websites.
• Email.
• Online advertising.
• Print advertising.
• Cold calls.
• Billboards.
• Trade shows.

Using these varied digital media for marketing is meant to achieve the following goals:

• Growth of sales.
• Brand awareness.
• Stronger audience relationships.
• Added market value.
• Promotion of products and services.
• Promo and sales updates.

Providers customize the methods according to your target audience’s behaviors in digital marketing. Are they commuters who spend long hours in vehicles listening to the radio and encounter billboards on the way to work and back home? Then, print and radio ads will do. 

Are they homemakers who spend most of their time indoors caring for the house? TV and social media ads will suffice.

They will not focus on one medium but a variety of media that your customers engage with daily to boost brand awareness and, subsequently, sales. Upon review, you can check the analytics of the entire campaign and see which methods are working and which aren’t. Your digital marketing providers will revise the approach to ensure maximum returns. Such is the beauty of digital media marketing.

Social Media Marketing

Conversely, promoting products and services through social media is dedicated only to a portion of methods available in digital marketing: pure social media apps. That means your marketing efforts will be seen on the following:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• YouTube
• Twitter
• Viber
• Snapchat
• TikTok
• LinkedIn

Only social media apps are the media where your ads will appear, thereby equalizing most of your audiences to one channel, especially if they have any of the apps mentioned above. 

Aside from plain ads and links to e-commerce sites, social media marketing services also involve influencers’ services. These online endorsers promote the products on their respective channels or pages. 

In a nutshell, this type of marketing utilizes the methods of digital promotions only on various social media apps to develop brand awareness, customer loyalty, and sales.

Their Key Differences

• Digital marketing employs electronic online and offline technologies to promote your products and services. Remember that digital devices are electronic devices, whether published virtually or physically.
• Social media marketing services zeroes in on purely online electronic platforms to promote products and services.
• Digital marketing employs a variety of media to cascade your message. Traditional media such as print, TV, and radio converge with new media technologies such as the Internet and social media.
• Social media is the avenue with which marketers promote. Going outside of that already yields itself to digital marketing initiatives.
• Digital marketing strategies can be customized according to your audiences’ habits and media preferences. As such, they may be costlier.
• Social media marketing services solely rely on online apps. Therefore, you only need one channel to spread your message.

The Final Note

Choosing which method is best for your business always depends on your customer profile. Are they predominantly online via social media, or do they still touch base with traditional media, such as TV, print, or radio? Always center your marketing strategy on your customers, so your brand builds better awareness and relationships in the ways familiar to them.

For more assistance on these kinds of marketing channels, seek the experts from Social Cali right now! We’re a full-service digital marketing agency specializing in Google ads, Facebook ads, social media marketing services, search engine optimization, and even website design so your customers can better access your products and services! Call us today!