Key Differences Between Content Marketing and Social Media Marketing

Everyone consumes some form of content online. In the world of digital marketing, publishing content remains the base for all marketing campaigns. Whether it is to increase demand for a product or maintain relationships with target audiences, there are combined marketing channels at play for generating and promoting content. Because, content too, just like a product/service in the marketing mix, needs to be distributed at the right place and time.  

Consider social media marketing. The content in this marketing channel revolves around all social channels. On the other hand, the goals of content marketing go beyond creating content for social media platforms. So, where does the difference between content marketing and social media marketing lie? Let’s find out.

Content Marketing vs Social Media Marketing  

Content marketing and social media marketing are two distinct marketing strategies that often overlap. In a marketing plan, their tools, goals and processes differ. 

Comparing Definitions

Content marketing is all about resolving customer pain points through content. According to the Content Marketing Institute, it is a ‘strategic marketing approach’ for promoting content that is defined by characteristics such as ‘valuable, relevant and consistent’. Only then can the content help a brand in attracting and retaining the target audiences for driving ‘profitable customer action’. 

Social media marketing applies to marketing activities in all social networks such as Meta (the new name of Facebook), Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn and more to increase brand awareness by directly or indirectly interacting with existing and potential customers. 

A Comparison of Approach

The centre of gravity in content marketing is the brand’s website. On the other hand, the gravity shifts towards social media platforms only in social media marketing. Social media marketing can be seen as a way to expand the reach of a brand’s content marketing efforts. One example can be encouraging online users to click on website links that have more informational content before buying a product or service. 

Elements Comparison

For content marketing to work in your brand’s favour, here are some of the main elements to consider. 

• Creating a Content Marketing Strategy

How you are positioning the brand is essential for creating any marketing strategy. Here, knowledge of existing customers and whether your product is able to help them or not, matter. Even the knowledge of competitors selling a similar product is essential. Through marketing research, you get to know the target audience, map their buying journey, find the relevant channel to engage them, and know which topics/keywords you should cover. A content marketing strategy also includes determining the output of your own team. 

• Creating Content

The main part of a content marketing strategy is creating content. The question is, whether the content will be useful. This includes figuring out whether you should be doing long- or short-form content, creating outlines/templates, finding out whether you will focus efforts on creating blogs, videos or podcasts, etc. 

• Optimising Content

Creating quality content through the lenses of SEO practices helps your web pages rank higher on search engines. This is essential for potential customers to find your brand online when they need answers to their queries. 

• Distributing Content

Distribution of content is equally important as creating it. A working content marketing strategy should include marketing channels such as social media, email marketing, etc. 

Now let’s compare the elements of social media marketing. 

• Creating Audience Persona Based on Different Social Platforms

It is a given that not all users use the same platforms. Instagram and YouTube are great for target audiences belonging to Gen Z and the millennial generation. On the other hand, LinkedIn is great for professionals. Creating audience personas is essential to tap into their preferences clearly. 

• Setting Objectives that Supplement a Content Marketing Plan

The goals of social media marketing are quite different from the ones in content marketing. Brand awareness is not the primary goal of content marketing when sales, increase in website traffic, customer loyalty, customer retention, and profits are concerned. Building a larger subscriber base, generating leads, tracking leads to conversion ratio, etc determine the success of a content marketing strategy. 

According to the 2021 Sprout Social Index, the goals of a social media marketing strategy are brand awareness (58%) and community engagement (41%). 

• Establishing Social Media-Centric Metrics

In social media marketing as well as in content marketing, evaluating metrics is important. However, success is defined by different measurements in social media marketing. They can be the performance of a hashtag used, checking if the engagement rate is high enough, how many unique users found out your brand’s social media posts. 

On the other hand, the metrics of content marketing include Click-Through-Rate, Impressions, Time on Page, Bounce Rate, Social Shares, Backlinks, etc. 

Types of Content in Content Marketing in Contrast with Social Media Marketing

In content marketing, the types of content can range from blogs, whitepapers, videos, podcasts, infographics, emails, to social media posts. In social media marketing, the different content formats are live streams, short video tutorials, 360° videos, testimonials on video or image, contests, quizzes, polls, memes, etc. Another popular type of content in social media marketing is user-generated content. It refers to individuals sharing videos or images of products on social platforms without the brand paying or sponsoring them for advertising the products. 

Should You Choose Content Marketing or Social Media Marketing?

Integrating content marketing and social media marketing is essential to create a demand for a product in today’s competitive market scenario. The concept of demand generation should not be given any less importance to as it includes every marketing activity from a sales initiative to tracking every touchpoint in the buying journey. By utilising both marketing strategies, it becomes easier to sell products that customers actually need.

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