Social media marketing V/S Traditional marketing- What is the difference and which one should you go for?
Since the advent of the internet, marketers have found new ways to create brand awareness and reach their audience. In this article, we’ll dive into traditional methods of marketing and compare them to social media marketing to give an overview of which will help your business.
What is traditional marketing?
Traditional Marketing, also called offline marketing at times, includes all the marketing strategies followed by the marketers before the internet came in. These strategies include:
- Billboards/posters/pictures/wall paints
- TV and Radio broadcasts
- Magazines and Newspapers
- Catalogues
- Phone calls and text messages
- Window display and signs
Traditional Marketing
Pros
Traditional Marketing to date happens to have a larger impact on viewers as it is easy to remember someone from a billboard than from a Facebook or Instagram post. It strikes and sits better with the audience. Traditional Marketing strategies such as TV commercials continue to be more popular in places where internet coverage is not that huge. Another benefit that counts is how these strategies need fewer reinforcements than social media marketing strategies. The internet is a fast place with many ads flashing from the eyes of users in as little as one hour. This makes traditional channels more memorable.
Cons
Traditional marketing advertisements campaigns are fun to launch but at the same time, it is hard to keep a track of these campaigns. There are no tools available that can help us keep track of the audience who viewed these magazines, billboards, posters, etc. Another downside is how expensive these marketing strategies can be. Putting your business or product name on a channel with a good audience or a popular magazine will be hard to afford for a business just beginning. Traditional Marketing strategies also make it hard to interact directly with the customers and take reviews and opinions from each. This makes it hard to figure out the likes of the target audience and build prediction models of customers.
What is Social Media Marketing?
This is part of digital marketing that entails designing a campaign in the folding of social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest, etc. Some of these include:
- Facebook ads
- Twitter Tweets/hashtags
- Instagram posts (sponsored or otherwise
Social Media Marketing
Pros
Social Media platforms offer a more actively engaging audience. These are the people posting, tweeting, accepting and rejecting friend requests, and always looking for something exciting. This makes such platforms an ideal place to promote your service or product. It is also far easier to keep your sales and activities measured. Analytical tools help keep a track of what the audience likes, what is selling, and how you can improve. This makes social media marketing far more efficient and at the same time affordable. Targeting an audience is much easier on social media platforms.
Cons
Social Media has space for all and anyone can get to see what they like. However, too many sponsored ads and less of the content that is liked make a campaign useless and annoying. Bombardment of ads on viewers makes it more likely to be disliked. Hence, one has to tread carefully when putting up the ads and make sure that they are relevant and provide an emotional value. Such ads are also more temporary and need more reinforcement. An ad one might see this week might be nowhere the next week if you don’t find a new way to put it up again for those users. If the target audience keeps scrolling past your ads and goes to another page, your ad will be gone. Hence it is important to understand how the social media space is constantly evolving and your business to keep up to stay relevant.
What you need to do?
In conclusion, one can set up the best marketing plan by combining traditional and social media marketing strategies. Traditional Marketing continues to have its audience while social media is a huge space too. Internet users now make up 57% of the world’s population. Facebook alone has 2.85 billion users worldwide. Such numbers cannot be left uncatered. This makes social media marketing even more important for a business.
It is important to know your target audience and their behaviors to know what works for you. Having younger people as your target client means investing in social media marketing is a better option. To cater to an older age group, traditional Marketing strategies might prove to be better. Also, Facebook is more popular with an older age group while Instagram is more popular with those who are between 13 and 22 years old. Contact IT Advice Team and Get Training in Social Media Optimization or Services of Social Media Marketing. Using Analytical tools and learning about the trends will provide you with a better understanding of how you should use your marketing budgets.
