How to Tell the Difference between Social Media Marketing and Social Media Management

You may often ask yourself - what's the difference between social targeting ads (or social media marketing) and social media management. They seem to sound like the same thing but in this article we're going to break down the difference.

The easiest way to understand the difference between social media marketing or advertising and social media management is to understand the difference between paid and organic. So if you think about it in the search world, when you think about paid search, you're talking about running ads on Google when somebody types in a keyword your ad renders and shows up. You can control it based on your budget. You could reach your target tomorrow. Well, there's also something called search engine optimisation on Google and that's organic search and for that you need to optimise your website. You need to build continual content. You need to have a planned strategy in place to get to the top of searches organically for your site and to stay there.

Well, in the social world it's much the same. With social media marketing or social media advertising, this is the Google Ads equivalent, and is paid social. Paid social means you can pick your demographics, pick your targeting and, based on your budget and your targeting, your ads can become visible to people instantly and you can start seeing the results come through almost immediately.

The difference between that and social media management, is social media management is an organic approach. You have to build content. You have to constantly post content. You have to engage with your community and what happens is if you continually work and make that effort, you are going to see an increase in followers. That following doesn't happen overnight. It happens over a long period of time. The rewards and the benefits are tremendous but it's more of a long-term strategy. In other words, when you start social media management in the first month or two, you may not have a lot of followers but after a year, you could have a tremendously huge following that's generating a substantial amount of business for your company. It's an investment you have to make long-term. Whereas social targeting ads can get you visible tomorrow which is great but it's a little more costly. It's more of a short-term program that can drive great results but at a higher cost. That's the main difference. So now that you understand the rough difference between the two, the question you may be asking is - which one's better, right?

Well honestly, it's important to invest in both.

Just like in the search world, when somebody searches a keyword, you want to rank high in the paid ads that's in the top two or three listings and also high on organic search. That's going to get you on page one twice for those best terms. That's going to drive the best results. Same thing in the social world, you're going to want to be visible to viewers and building your brand and your brand awareness to people that maybe have never heard about you via social targeting ads. Running campaigns, doing social media marketing and advertising. Spending money there, making an investment here.

But you also want to be building your organic presence and your following. You want to be posting content and engaging with your community. This is creating social proof and if people see that you have both they're going to trust you even more and you're going to get a tremendous increase in sales. So in summary, social marketing and advertising is short-term, costs money but you can get visible right away. Social media management takes a longer term investment but can basically generate huge results over a long period of time. One's paid, one's organic just like in the search world. You can use the first to give your business a 'leg up' if you like, until the second has built traction and following.

I hope this is helpful - check back for more tips on how best to use Video Marketing and Social Media to enhance your business.