Social Media Marketing For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Treating SMM Differently from Brand Marketing

Because of the power of peer influence, social media marketing is increasingly approached differently from brand and direct-response marketing. The differences stem from the fact that the philosophical approach, strategies, and execution tactics of SMM are more community and socially oriented.

Social media marketing is fundamentally about engaging with expert, referent, and positional influencers and strategically leveraging social media in all its forms to meet marketing and business objectives. As a result, you need to understand how social media marketing fits into the context of brand and direct response marketing.

SMM in the context of brand marketing

Brand marketing focuses on building equity around a brand, its personality, and attributes. Customers purchase products based on the brand promise. Through various forms of advertising and communications, the brand promise is brought alive to generate awareness, build excitement, and get specific products included in a consideration set. Mass media channels are typically used to build awareness for the brand, reposition it with more powerful attributes, or ultimately sell product. This will always be central to marketing efforts. All brands require significant effort to penetrate a market and generate desire.

SMM complements brand marketing in some key ways:

SMM places extra emphasis ...