Digital marketing is a process of promoting brands, products, and services online and creating awareness using various available digital channels. In other words, it is basically the promotion of brands and products using digital devices. It includes both offline and online channels including billboards, TV, text, podcasts, commercial ads, messaging, and many more. As marketing is all about putting brands and products in front of most consumers’ eyes, digital marketing does this job effectively and efficiently through billions of electronic devices.

Online Marketing

It includes the following communication options such as search ads, websites, banner ads, email ads, display ads, etc. It is the type of digital marketing that runs off the internet. There are six major types including content marketing, Email marketing, search engine marketing, social media marketing, affiliate marketing, and PPC.

Offline Marketing

Offline digital marketing is also traditional and ineffective marketing. Most brands like Mcdonald’s or Coca-Cola still spend millions on TV ads and billboards every year for a good reason. Offline marketing is highly effective when it is used properly. Channels of offline marketing include radio shows and online radio ads, phone marketing through text or cold calling and stream service or cable Tv channels, etc.

Benefits Of Digital Marketing

Cost-Effective

Digital marketing is more cost-effective than traditional marketing methods if it is executed well. It is the better option as it covers the target audience in a much wider range.

Personalization And Targeting

Through digital marketing, the users can now personalize their marketing campaign according to their target market. Furthermore, the users by using the customer data can create specific marketing content that is based on their customer profiles.

Versatility And Accessibility

Due to its high versatility and accessibility, digital marketing is mostly used by most brands for promoting their products and services and reaching the end-users effectively and efficiently. Moreover, apart from big brands, small businesses also make use of digital marketing to advertise their niche products and services using online channels effectively.

Broad Reach

Through digital marketing, users can now reach their potential users effectively all around the world. As a marketer, you can make use of various digital marketing channels in order to control the size of the target customers you want to reach.

Measurable

By using digital marketing, brands and companies can accurately measure the number of customers they have gained by monitoring various metrics and marketing campaigns such as home page visits, direct purchases, and email open rates. Hence digital marketing is highly accurate and measurable.

Social Media Marketing

The largest component of digital marketing campaigns is social media marketing. It is the part of digital marketing that relies on the use of social forums and channels to reach the target customers. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, and many more are some of the biggest social media platforms. Furthermore, other online forums like Quora and Reddit are also known to be fertile grounds for social media marketing.

Moreover, social media marketing involves the interaction and engagement with potential customers, posting fresh and unique content, seeking industry influencers, and opting for many other different ways to grab the attention of the target customers that are present on different social media platforms converting them into loyal customers.

Benefits Of Social Media Marketing

Building Brand Image

While using various social media platforms, customers are able to engage themselves with the brand at a personal level. This can be possible by creating and maintaining a stable and consistent brand voice e.g trustworthy, helpful, professional, or friendly.

Advertising

One of the biggest benefits of social media platforms to brands is that it pushes their products and services through paid ads. And through these means, large social media companies are making money and promoting their services in a much more efficient way.

Data Collection

With the help of social media marketing, brands and companies are now able to significantly gain insights into the lives and minds of their target customers. Data collection in return helps the brands to improve their products, marketing efforts, and services in order to serve their customers in a much better way.

Content Promotion

With the help of social media marketing, users can often push their sites and blogging content. This creates a loyal brand following and drives site visits. Hence it is a great option to create brand visibility and authority.

Track Market Sentiments

Social media marketing is one of the most powerful tools. Brands and other large companies use social media marketing to track comments, mentions, shares, and many other social media posts in order to analyze how a brand is perceived by its target customers.

Difference Between Digital Marketing And Social Media Marketing

Digital Marketing

• It is the type of marketing that is done on all Digital marketing platforms including offline and Online.
• While using both offline and online means of digital marketing, the brands can reach out to their target audience in a wide range.
• Digital marketing usually aims to reach potential customers upon visiting emails, social media handles, websites, and many other digital media platforms.
• Digital marketing also creates awareness of a particular business measuring the performance of the content and social media while increasing traffic on websites.
• It only requires investment in prime spots and powerful ads like TV ads and billboards to grab the attention of their potential customers.
• Digital marketing is associated with the term Umbrella for all electronic and modern based advertising.
• It is mostly used to increase the sales of the product and services.
• It requires time to plan different strategies across different digital marketing channels as a long-term goal.
• The speed of most of the digital market platforms is comparatively low.
• It is mostly based on banner advertisements including billboards, the Internet, or TV for promotion purposes and to create impressions on customers’ minds.

Social Media Marketing

• It is the largest component of digital marketing that utilizes many different social networking platforms, forums, channels, and blogs for the promotion of products and services. As social media marketing is only limited to the internet, the user can only use this media to reach out to their target customers.
• Social media marketing has a limited reach to its target audience as users can reach them only through social media platforms.
• It focuses on interacting and engaging with the target customers while using various social media handles that evaluate customer engagement.
• Social media marketing heavily depends on a content strategy involving creating content and promoting it through various social media platforms that make it successful.
• It is specific to the marketing that is based upon social engagement channels to communicate efficiently with the target customers.
• Through these social media platforms, all kinds of businesses can achieve their goals including competitor research, brand awareness, and much more.
• It requires a shorter time period for planning and executing strategies that work immediately.
• The speed of social media platforms is faster due to the active response of the users and customers in the form of likes, comments, and shares, helping the brands to reach out to their target customers within seconds.

Digital Marketing VS Social Media Marketing

Choosing digital marketing or social media marketing depends upon the brand, type of product, and services that are offered to you. There are different situations where digital marketing is a more appropriate way to promote and build awareness of the specific brand and services than social media marketing. Social media marketing on the other hand is the most effective way to create awareness of the brands that have a wide range of target customers.

Furthermore, for getting appropriate results, most users use content marketing, PPC, email marketing, and many other digital marketing forums as a part of online marketing campaigns. Both of these marketing platforms work together for gaining better results in case of customer-brand interaction. Nowadays, it’s an era of social media marketing, it is used by every type of business for increasing their sales and generating revenue.

FAQs

What is social media marketing?

Social media marketing involves the use of various social media platforms and networks for promoting a company’s products and services. It is also one of the most effective ways used by brands and companies to reach out to their target customers while using the internet only.

What are different types of digital media?

Following are the different types of digital media:

• Digital image
• Software
• Web pages
• Video games
• Websites
• Databases
• Digital data
• Social media
• Digital audio
• Electronic books
• Electronic documents

What are the activities used to promote digital marketing?

There are six different activities that are used to promote digital marketing:

• SEO
• Content marketing
• Social media marketing
• Search engine marketing
• Email and message marketing
• Influencer and affiliate marketing

Which social media is best for marketing?

Following are the best social media platforms that are used for marketing:

• Snapchat
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Youtube
• Pinterest
• Tumblr
• Twitter
• Facebook

Why is social media best for marketing?

Social media is best for marketing as it is an open network, giving every type of business an equal chance to promote their products and services and reach out to their target customers efficiently. It also helps most marketers to get information about their customer’s needs and wants in order to create an effective strategy to grab their attention.

What is the benefit of social media marketing?

Social media marketing is really beneficial for brands and companies and makes it easier for them to spread their message about the products and services. Furthermore, social media also increases website traffic tremendously. It is also the most efficient way to reach out to the target customers at a wider range.

Conclusion

Digital marketing and social media marketing both are used by brands and companies for increasing their sales and generating revenue. There are certain situations where social media marketing can be more beneficial to create awareness of products and services than digital marketing. Through digital marketing, the users can widely reach out to their target customers using online and offline methods whereas the range of social media marketing is limited and only uses the internet to engage with the target customers.

On the other hand, digital marketing is totally based on banners for advertisement whereas social media marketing depends upon content strategy for promoting the products and services through various social media platforms. Furthermore, the speed of digital marketing is comparatively lower than that of social media marketing due to the active response of the target customers on social media platforms.