Social Media Marketing vs Traditional Marketing

Before social media came into existence, brands completely depended upon “traditional marketing” campaigns such as radio and television spots, print advertising, email blasts, advertisements in telephone books, etc. But, due to the rise of the social media and the internet, traditional marketing is fading away as the requirements and expectations of consumers keep changing.

What is the difference between Social Media Marketing and Traditional Marketing?

Even though both are marketing strategies, there is a huge difference between the two.

With traditional marketing, brands use media, such as television, radio, newspaper, magazines, and pamphlets, to just convey the information about them to their audiences and therefore it doesn’t allow any audience engagement. As this is the one-way communication media, traditional media marketing is considered as an ineffective marketing strategy.

These days, people use the internet for their general activities that include shopping, learning, and sharing information with others.  For shopping, they find products via. Search Engines and get reviews via. Blogs. Some of them check with their Twitter and Facebook friends to know more about the products they are planning to buy.

Hence, it becomes mandatory for businesses to open direct channels of communication as possible for their customers to communicate back with them. So, the businesses use social media to engage in conversation with their followers and also to listen to their customer’s expectations and needs.

With social media marketing, the businesses need to market their products or services with participation, engage with the one who complements their business and provides appropriate information to their followers. By doing all these, the businesses can able to draw in more people towards them easily in the competitive market.

However, traditional marketing activities still work for your business, like advertising on television or newspaper, sending emails, etc. Therefore, these are also essential for businesses to achieve success.

In fact, social media marketing works best when it combines with other marketing strategies, especially email marketing. Therefore, in order to pull out the most advantageous qualities, both the type of marketing strategies should be used together in a wise manner.