Social Marketing and Social Media

SOCIAL MARKETING AND SOCIAL MEDIA
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Social marketing and social media
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SOCIAL MARKETING AND SOCIAL MEDIA
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Social marketing is a method used to create activities which aim at changing the behavior
of individuals. The events benefit the community as a whole. Besides, social media refers to the
use of applications and websites that permit individuals to generate and share content via online
platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.
Similarities
In both cases, the primary intention is to convey messages to the members of the public.
Both of them aim to pass new ideas to the audience. Both the social marketers and the social
media users must operate within the existing laws. Failure to act within the law will attract heavy
penalties. The data generated from social marketing and social media can be used to forecast
future trends in the area that the campaign has been aimed. Both platforms can reach a broad
audience that is located in different regions.
Differences
Social marketing aims at influencing the public to change their behavior. For instance,
advertisements on HIV/AIDS and anti-smoking campaigns. These activities aim at controlling
the people to change their behavior. Also, social marketing aims at creating awareness about a
particular issue. For example, it can sensitize the people on the consequences of smoking or
engage in irresponsible sexual behaviors (Fertman, 2017). On the other hand, social media is
used for social interaction and sharing ideas in general. In social marketing, one must come up
with a brand, but in social media, it is not necessary. To sum up, social marketing has a specific
target audience. For example, it can target commercial sex workers and the smokers. However,
social media can be used by anyone for interaction purposes. Social marketing can use various