Apr.30, 2008 by Matt Goddard
Social Networking vs. Social Media
Categories: Social, Thought Leadership
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Social networking and social media – both have the world “social” in them, but they should not be confused as the same thing. In fact, unless you understand how they are different and how they interact, your attempt to use them in a digital campaign strategy is probably going to miss the mark.
In simplest terms, social networking is the “what,” and social media is the “how.”
Let’s start with the “what.” Social networks are made up of peers seeking and giving advice to make better decisions. Advanced social networking science can even tell us which people give out the most advice in the network and have the most influence. These people are called opinion leaders. Some social networks are very large but they tend to get smaller when decisions are more risky.Â
Now comes the “how” – as in how the social networks communicate. Social networks connect through traditional means, like face-to-face conversations, but we also use new-fangled approaches, such as blogs, syndicated videos, social bookmarks, and more, which we call social media. Unlike social network theory, which involves decision behaviors based on patterns of advice seeking, social media pertains to how this information can be shared online.
In a campaign, we often want to rush into the “how,” for example: “How can we use social media in our next campaign to sell more products?” This approach puts the “how” in front of the “what,” which is the incorrect sequence in virtually any strategy.
First, you need to evaluate the viability of leveraging existing social networks for your business objectives. There are many instances where online social networks do not exist, and if you apply social media to that type of environment, no one will be listening. As a general rule: the greater the gravity of the decision (i.e., the greater the risk), the more likely that social networking is in play and can be leveraged. Therefore, we need to begin by asking ourselves, “Do my customers want to reduce risk in making decisions?” and “Do they rely on peer networks to reduce this risk?” If the answer to these questions is yes, then we’ve settled the “what” portion.
The next question is whether social media can help us tap into this behavior. The answer is maybe. Social media are thriving hubs of social networking behavior and are naturally very desirable channels. But influencing them isn’t so simple. The very reason the person is there is to make an informed decision on your industry without commercial interference on the decision process. Sometimes it makes better sense to take advantage of social networking behavior without social media.
In my next blog post, we’ll discuss using social networks with and without social media.
At a glance
- Social networks and social media are distinct but connected
- Social networks are patterns of advice seeking and advice giving used to reduce the risk of decisions.
- Social media is a popular platform for delivering the social message.
- You need to establish whether the social networking exists in your target market and whether social media is viable channel of influence.
March 6th, 2009 on 4:36 pm
New to your site; googled for information about social media and found you. So, how does a small business that is primarily local take advantange of social media? Anything I have seen so far from companies claiming to tap into social media comes with lots of promises, no guarantees, and high costs. I can’t afford this, but want to take advantage of the “new word of mouth” to improve both image and increase business from customers that are more into blogs, myspace, etc.
March 6th, 2009 on 4:37 pm
You are correct that there aren’t guarantees with social media and there definitely shouldn’t be promises by any companies. Social media is like gossip. You do what you can to influence it but you can’t guarantee how it will play out the way you want. The best thing about social media is that it is typically a low cost initiative with a reasonable chance of positive results in the form of things such as increased search traffic, brand awareness and/or media attention.
For more specifics on campaign outcomes in the past few years for many small to enterprise level businesses you should check out http://www.marketingsherpa.com. Currently, they estimate that social media has roughly a 50/50 chance of some decent buzz and a 1 in 80 chance of hitting a home run where you can generate major buzz with a lot of press attention and drive a large volume of traffic to your site at little cost.
Most interesting is that Marketing Sherpa cites that there isn’t a significant difference between very experienced and somewhat experienced marketers in the social and viral space. Somewhat experienced marketers have 42% ratio of positive ROI campaigns and very experienced have 46% ratio. So paying big bucks to a big marketing campaign is not always the best idea. Also, many successful campaigns have been on budgets less than $10k and many have been $1500 or less.
March 6th, 2009 on 4:37 pm
Local businesses have unique challenges in social media but not much different then they do with any digital campaign that requires geo-targeting. There are no silver bullets and you are correct in saying promises are being made and poor delivery sometimes.I would need to know more about your product offerings to assess how networks are utlized in the decision making process and how they form in geo-targeted ways. We could then see if anything makes sense to pursue. If you want to continue the conversation feel free to contact lhill@r2integrated.com and she can set something up.
March 6th, 2009 on 4:37 pm
Interesting article. Im with a lumber trading company and Im researching how we could use social networks and media to increase brand awareness, customer loyalty, and information. We do have a website and sell online, but it is difficult to get anyone to use the web. Most of our sales are done on the phone. As far as I know, there are no online social networks specific to the industry also. Do you have any advice of how we could encourage online networking in a primarly offline industry? Or how we could use media tools to increase awareness and loyalty with existing online buyers?
January 3rd, 2010 on 11:25 am
This is an amazing blog! I really wish that someday I could have a blog that is as well done as this..