What really IS the difference between marketing and social media? Aren’t the really one in the same?

In short: no.

While I often call on my many years in marketing while consulting about social media, they really are  different animals. When discussing social media campaigns, over and again, I find myself stressing the same words: transparency. Engagement. Relationships. Sometimes, eyes glaze and heads nod, but I know I need to dig deeper and explain the differences between the traditional forms of marketing and PR and social media. I’ve spent many years in traditional marketing and one of the reasons I believe so strongly in social media is BECAUSE of these differences.

Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t advocate “doing” away with traditional marketing and PR firms. On the contrary,  I firmly believe that marketing, PR and social media should work together on any and all initiatives and campaigns. None of these departments should be ignored in their respective viewpoints. Indeed, they can enhance one another’s objectives when working together.

At the risk of over simplifying. Let me explain.

At its most basic essence, marketing is about creating an image and PR is about creating and controlling messages.  Social media is about crafting relationships.

In social media, regardless of the tools you’ll use, you’ll find building an audience is about inspiring action. Few people take action on a product or a brand they can’t believe in. To have a voice that people can reach out to in the medium/tool of their choice is a powerful relationship builder. That’s social media. More importantly though, what’s more important to you – to be heard or to speak? How do you think your customer feels?  Further, people like to feel connected to the brands they support. When they feel like the brand is their “friend” then it makes them feel as though they have a voice. Giving the customer a voice and LISTENING to them is the first step in crafting a relationship that creates action.   This is engagement at its simplest and yet, most significant.

Marketing is about putting your best foot forward. In PR its about putting it in context. Social Media is about putting it all out there.

Social Media is a new form of communication. Mistakes happen, and when they do, their instant and virtually irretrievable. But guess what? That makes your company, product or brand human. Humans like dealing with humans. We are at once more isolated behind our computers and yet inundated with more and more messages. Ask yourself, whose email do you read first, the one from a close friend or the email newsletter you signed up for. Do you read “messages” first or notes from friends? Social media works the same way – and we are better able to choose which messages we hear, see and respond to. If there is a human behind the brand, it garners an entirely new level of respect and response. This is transparency, indeed, humanity at its best.

Marketing is promoting a message. PR is about controlling the discourse. Social media is about two way communication.

While I believe that content is important in social media, what’s more important are discussions. The opportunity to directly communicate with someone you perceive to care about the experience and perception of a brand. Its almost like customer service, only better – because the conversation is between two people who care enough to give and take. The customer is no longer an account number, they are a human. Very meaningful. Two way communication is the foundation of relationships.

Marketing leaves you cynical. PR leaves you asking more questions. Social media leaves you with friends.

After years in marketing, I can barely watch a commercial, read an ad or visit a website without some cynicism.  I sometime wonder, “did the person who crafted this image or message ever even USE the service their promoting?” So often the customer experience is radically different that then the pitch, the image, the ideal.  As important, particularly if you are a small business, its an opportunity to get a real opinion direct from the customer. Suddenly, the customer and the brand/company are friends. The brand/company begins to empathize with the customer experience in an entirely new way and the customer begins to empathize with the brand/company differently too. As a customer, when the brand is your friend, its a lot easier to proactively promote and support.

This is the revolution of social media. Strangely, through technology, people are becoming people again. “Power to the people”, is really more about power to the individual. Companies can either listen or ignore, but in the long run, those who listen, engage, build will find themselves ahead of the pack.

I had a conversation yesterday with a new client that just sums up the relationship that small business owners have with social media. I was referred to these particular clients by my SEO partner, Rob Bertholf. While he is working on the SEO segment, they asked him if social media could enhance their SEO presence. Rob answered in the affirmative and referred them to me.

This particular business is a growing web-based business with the potential to have tens of millions of dollars in revenue, but for now, its two guys with guts running the show. Both are “all in” its what they do and from what I can see, they do a darn good job. But now what? They want to grow. They want to tackle their internet competitors. Their aspirations are admirable, but as any small business owner knows, growing a business takes complete focus and dedication, and sometimes, ironically, marketing falls to the wayside.

In the case of our friends, marketing hasn’t fallen by the wayside; actually the opposite. They have some good tools already: a targeted Facebook page that funnels to their site, a web forum where they interact with customers and brand with some potential for “oomph”. For many social marketers, this would be a dream client. They have content, brand potential and a trackable web-based business. Secondarily, they have one store-front and plan on opening another in a particularly high traffic destination. They get all their retail traffic from foot traffic, but they’d like to increase it. Sounds like a geolocation marketing opportunity to me. We’ll start off simple with geolocation, getting them listed and doing offers on Yelp, Gowalla, 4square to start, as their retail location is a unique concept. Once we get a feel for the success, we’ll consider expanding.

Now we start discussing Twitter, it was another story. Right off the bat, I am told that “Twitter doesn’t work for our business. We just want to use Twitter for the SEO benefits (thank you, Google).” I am intrigued by this belief since a quick overview before our meeting showed that their product was being discussed on Twitter, but their BRAND wasn’t. I suggested that while they have a Twitter account, they engage with their customers a bit.  My potential customers said they did do that, and when it happened, they saw a 30% spike in traffic to their website, but it wasn’t new customers. WOW! 30%! If I was getting 30% every time I Twittered, I’d drop all other advertising and Twitter regularly. None the less, Twittering worked for existing customers almost exclusively. Why? They were reaching out to their customers in the medium they preferred: the internet. There are great ways to get new customers on Twitter too, but they haven’t found them with the use of bots which was the first attempt at building their followers.

I don’t believe in bots. I believe in genuine engagement. I believe in following people who are talking about your ideas, passions and products. Authentic=success in social media. Twitter needs to be approached with strategy. Twitter is deceptively simple looking, yet its a complex tool. Its a conversation starter – not a blow horn. I think you get the most out of Twitter with GENUINE discussions.  If you aren’t interested in having conversations with your customers try print advertising, its fast and easy..its also a sink hole for most small businesses (I can say that: I used to sell print advertising). Using bots on Twitter is like doing print advertising: you have 25,000 followers, who don’t really care about your product. Your just spewing 140 character advertisements at your followers and they are turning you out or unfollowing because THEY DON’T CARE. Plus, you aren’t engaging them because you have nothing in common. See where I am going with this?

Beginning engagements and discussions takes strategy and time. That’s why I have a job. I think about it. I analyze it. I work with my SEO partner in tandem to create an actual strategy.

THAT’S the nitty gritty isn’t it?  Time and strategy.

After further discussion it isn’t that my clients don’t believe in Twitter, they just don’t KNOW how they can use it. They’ve scratched the surface. They don’t understand how to use it-why would they? They are business owners, sales guys, not social media experts. If I were a business owner with employees and payroll, I would outsource this too. As it turns out, Twitter DOES work for their business, they just need to know how to really use it.

At the end of the discussion, we agreed to define a strategy for Twitter, using YouTube, their site’s forum and even a geolocation strategy. We’ll use it to build their brand, engage new and existing clients and drive traffic to their content-rich site. Then, we’ll track our analytics. We’ll tweek and refine. We’ll kill what doesn’t work and beef up what does. Social media marketing is dynamic, that’s the good news. The bad news is that you want to stay on top of it, otherwise you’ll lose opportunities because you aren’t responding to the dynamic elements.

Almost all small businesses think that social media is a waste of time. I contend they think so because they aren’t using it correctly. More businesses can benefit than they believe, they just need some assistance in doing so.