PUBH8475 Week 6 Discussion: Social Marketing vs. Social Media

This discussion post explores the concepts of social marketing and social media within the context of public health, highlighting their similarities and differences. Social marketing is defined as a method for creating activities aimed at influencing individual behavior for the benefit of the community, while social media involves using online platforms for generating and sharing content. The discussion emphasizes that both approaches aim to convey messages to the public and must operate within legal boundaries. Key differences include social marketing's focus on behavior change and awareness campaigns versus social media's broader use for social interaction and idea sharing. The post also touches on the strengths and weaknesses of social media as a tool for conveying information, noting its broad reach but potential for biased or inaccurate information. The discussion references resources from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and relevant literature on health promotion programs.

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Social marketing and social media
Student:
Institution:

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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

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platforms to convey the message to the target audience. For instance, the use of print media,
mass media and billboards. Social media only rely on the internet to operate.
Strength and weakness
Social media tools are essential for purposes of conveying information because they can
reach a broad audience. However, at times the users can be biased leading to the dissemination of
inaccurate information.

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References
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Office of the Associate Director for
Communication. (2011). The health communicator’s social media toolkit. Retrieved from
http://www.cdc.gov/socialmedia/Tools/guidelines/pdf/SocialMediaToolkit_BM.pdf
Fertman, C. I., & Allensworth, D. D. (Eds.). (2017). Health promotion programs: From theory to
practice (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Chapter 8, “Communicating Health Information Effectively” (pp. 193-216)