Social media marketing is an extension of traditional marketing methods, principles, and theory. Successful marketing, regardless if it is Social or not, revolves around AIDA, a traditional marketing concept! You have to get your customer’s Attention, build their Interest in your product, and convince them they want your offer by building Desire. Finally, the consumer will take Action and make a purchase. Social media is a tool to accomplish all of this. In some ways, it can be a better, more efficient way, but again it is still just a tool in your marketing tool belt.
Social media gives business a chance to expand traditional methods and involve customers in the marketing process. In many cases, they end up being the ones doing the marketing for you! For example, a company Facebook page is a great way to post updates about products or services, as well as inviting customers to post pictures and comments about the products/services. The real time nature of Facebook makes it an ideal “one day only” promotional tool, and an effective way to integrate traditional with social.
With traditional marketing, we aim to sell products to result in a profit or ROI. With social, we hope to create and maintain relationships, which makes it harder to measure with metrics. And we all know the issues surrounding ROI and social media! Everyone wants a calculated ROI, proof that Social is ‘working”. Traditional campaigns are easier to measure success than a social strategy. I prefer not to think of social media strategies as “campaigns”, as that implies there is a definite start and stop date. There is not. Social intends to create connections and maintain long-term relationships. This is a huge difference.
Social is also a great way to help clarify the messages you send through traditional marketing. With social media, you can create a dialogue with your customers to ensure the right messages are relayed. The key is relevancy, and interaction with your customers via social media allows us to achieve this. We are able to have conversations with our customers that uncover what they want, need, and expect from us.
Traditional marketing and social marketing must be integrated and nurtured in order to realize the full potential of a very powerful combo. Without fully integrating the two, businesses can take on great risks related to over-dependence on one or over-use of another. Businesses must define their strategy, roles, and expectations of social media before integration and implementation.
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Jessica Rogers, PhD. 