Marketing refers to any kind of action taken by a company to attract an audience towards its product or services. It aims to deliver value for consumers through content to increase sales and strengthen the loyalty of the brand.
Marketing is essential to research and analyse your consumers, study shopping habits and allow consumers to communicate with your business. Therefore, your marketing strategy could involve a lot of activities, both online and offline.
With digital marketing gaining so much traction, almost every business wants to tap into it and make its online presence. However, to make a cohesive digital marketing plan, one needs to leverage different strategies to top the charts on search engines. But many get confused while planning and implementing these distinct strategies, two common ones being social media marketing and content marketing.
So in this blog, let us explore these two digital marketing strategies and their effectiveness in achieving marketing goals.
What is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is a strategic tool focused on creating valuable and relevant content to attract and retain a set audience. This also helps to drive positive customer action.
Through content marketing, you provide relevant content to your customers to make them understand what you, as a company or business, have to offer. A vast majority of marketers around the globe, whether it be big or small businesses, are using content marketing because it works.
Content marketing is a method for businesses to inform and educate potential customers by shaping their perceptions and also raising brand awareness. In this type of marketing, organisations publish their content on websites and other platforms where a content marketing strategy can be incorporated. Customer trust and loyalty can be built for the brand by sharing quality content.
What is Social Media Marketing?
Social media marketing is a marketing technique that uses social media platforms to build brand awareness and increase sales. It provides businesses with a way to engage with their customers as well as reach new ones.
In addition, social media marketing often has built-in data analytics that can be used to track the success rate and find better ways to engage with customers, which would have been previously impossible.
Since social media is where people might discover and learn about brands, if used the right way, it can be a powerful tool to reach your customers. Platforms like Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn can bring immense success to businesses with great social media marketing strategies.
Are Content Marketing and Social Media Marketing the Same?
Content marketing and social media marketing are both effective marketing tools, but are they the same?
Let us take a look at both in detail to know more.
Both content marketing and social media marketing aim to raise awareness and increase growth, but there are a few differences between these two marketing strategies. Social media marketing drives engagement by interacting with the consumers, while content marketing tries to drive visitors to the brand’s site.
Content marketing is one of the oldest marketing techniques used, whereas social media is a relatively newer development in the marketing world. But they both heavily rely on informative and useful content to succeed.
Content marketing involves the production of content, keeping the audience in mind so as to add value for customers. It includes web pages, blog posts and videos which are all hosted on the company’s website. Consumers cannot contribute to the content’s design and formation; its sole aim is to provide meaningful information to the audience.
Social media marketing, on the other hand, aims to deliver bit-size content in the form of posts comprising images, videos, catchy quotes, one-liners or sections of the blogs on the company’s social media pages. With social media posts, customers can respond using likes and comments, thereby creating a conversation and interacting with the brand. This means the consumers have a hand in shaping the brand’s image on social media.
Social media marketing is definitely a game changer when it comes to marketing strategies. It provides a platform for marketers to easily and directly engage with consumers and target audiences. It is also great for gathering insights for businesses. When combined with other marketing channels, social media marketing works even better.
In no way will content marketing replace social media marketing, as these two are different strategies with two different roles. However, at the end of the day, these marketing strategies are combined as key tools of a unified marketing strategy.
Conclusion
Content marketing and social media marketing are two different strategies but with some overlapping characteristics. To promote and raise brand awareness, a combination of both content and social media marketing is vital.
Content marketing aims to generate a significant number of subscribers allowing quality lead conversions. On the other hand, social media is an excellent channel for publishing content, as social media marketing supports content marketing and attracts potential customers to become subscribers.
Marketing strategies play a vital role in making a business successful. Social media is one of the best ways to get marketing rolling for any business. As it takes time to achieve your marketing goals through content marketing, you should consider marketing through social media if you want a quick start.
Still trying to understand what marketing strategies would be best for your business? Don’t worry; there is an easy way out. You only need to engage an experienced digital marketing agency to figure it out for you. They would be able to create a winning marketing strategy for you with the right mix of digital marketing techniques to ensure your valuable resources are directed in the right direction.
