Digital Marketing and Social Media Marketing (SMM) are the two of the biggest tools used by marketers to promote a product or a service. In the age of digitization, these two have helped organizations achieve new heights. These two tools have allowed companies to reach out to their customers frequently and effectively. The two top modern tools are not only helping the sellers but also helping the buyers.

To add to their role, they have fueled the process of marketing and have made it way faster than it used to be a decade ago. But what do we know about these two trendy and effective marketing tools? Are they similar or different? And if yes, then how? Let us find the answer to all these questions.

What is digital marketing?

If we go by the basic definition of marketing, it says that it is the promotion of a product or service among the target audience, both to drive sales and to inform/make aware.  Adding the word digital doesn’t change the whole process but rather the medium of promotion. So in a nutshell, Digital marketing is the process of promoting a business’ product and service among the target audience, using digital channels like mobile, TV, internet, and others.

It should also be noted that if we say that a brand is using digital marketing, it doesn’t necessarily mean that all the channels are being used at once. The channels are selected based on the needs. Digital Marketers create a blend of channels and include them in their strategy to maximize the results.

What is social media marketing?

Now coming to Social Media Marketing. As the name clearly suggests, it is a marketing tool that uses social media platforms for the promotion of products and services. It is one of the aspects of digital marketing where channels like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram Telegram, and others are used by marketers to engage with their audience.

The process involves posting frequent and unique content to attract the target audience, followers, industry influencers, and other relevant people.

Nowadays, SMM has become mandatory for any organization if they want to succeed. Most people, irrespective of their age group, are active on one or the other social media platforms. Marketers just have to pick the best one to grab the attention of their TG. Moment marketing, memes, short videos, all of these are essentials of SMM.

Different or similar?

As you may have already drawn from the definitions of these two tools, they are different. People often confuse the two terms and even use them interchangeably. But no, engaging with your TG on social media is not digital marketing but rather it’s a part of it.

The only similarity between them is that they are used by organizations for marketing and promotion purposes. We can also say that Social Media Marketing is an integral part of digital marketing and is not entirely different. Let us not get involved in sentences and get straight to the point.

Digital Marketing is a broader concept while SMM is limited to Social Media platforms. Also, Social media is a tool of digital marketing.

Digital Marketing does allow the marketers to interact with their audience both online and offline while SMM is limited to online boundaries.

Digital Marketing uses several tools like Television, Mobile advertisements, Online ads, SMS, and others whereas Social Media Marketing involves only social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Telegram, etc.

If we talk about the difference in their working, Digital marketing doesn’t require the marketers to come up with unique and frequent content while SMM requires uniqueness. Also, the brands have to be consistent in coming up with good content otherwise they lose their followers. In digital marketing, you can use one banner across channels and yet create the same impact but that is not the case with SMM.

With our world confined to electronic gadgets, marketers have also adopted the new mediums and are reaping rewards. Digital Marketing and Social Media Marketing are some of those modern-day marketing tools but have been at the top in terms of their usage and also what they provide in return.