Social Media vs. Social Marketing

It isn't unusual for folks to use "social media" and "social marketing" interchangeably in conversation these days. Although similar sounding, they are actually quite different. You will hear many different definitions of both, but the basics remain distinct.

"Social Media" refers to social interactivity and content creation/collaboration tools/plaforms on the web. The most commonly referenced examples of "social media" are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube; however, there are many different ways for users to share their thoughts, ideas, expertise, as well as collaborate and network online. "Social Media" is an extension of "Web 2.0," which is a term used to describe web applications that provide user-generated content. Web 2.0 encompasses things like blogs, wikis, and podcasts, as well as the social media sites mentioned above.

"Social Marketing" is the use of marketing techniques to influence behavior or social perception, as opposed to marketing a particular product or service. Examples of well know social media campaigns include: environmental behavior change (Crying Indian Campaign), seat belt usage (Dummy Campaign, "You could learn a lot from a dummy!"), Forest Fires (Smokey The Bear Campaign), Anti-Smoking (Truth Campaign), etc... Internationally, "social marketing" is used to combat malaria, AIDS, water and environmental degradation, gender violence,. drug abuse and much more. These "behavior change" campaigns leverage social norms, competition, social networks, careful messaging, and precise targeting effectively influence their audiences.