Social Media Marketing and PR : The Main Differences

Resulted in the development of social media, the borders between social media marketing and public relations have blurred. Nowadays, companies distribute all their press releases and marketing campaigns through social media platforms, manage their public reputation and even crises. Therefore, it is getting hard to say where social media marketing finishes and public relations begin. (Social Media Marketing in Armenia)However, there are a few distinguished differences between social media marketing and public relations. They are different functions serving different purposes.

• First of all, the main and the most significant purpose of the marketing is to sell the company's products and services. What concerns social media marketing, its role is to attract attention to the brand and direct online users to buy company’s goods. As of public relations, they strike to develop and maintain relationship and reputation.
• Marketing centers on sales. It tries to meet customer demands and maintain the chain of moving goods from producers to distributors and consumers. Public relations concentrate on company's image. Public and stakeholders, such as media and investors, are all that matters. By creating a relevant content, social media marketing’s sole purpose is to get more traffic to their websites.
• Marketing uses paid media, such as advertising. Public relations use earned media, such as press releases. As regards social media marketing, it employs unique and high-quality content.

Social media is nowadays a place where marketing, public relations and social media marketing meet. Marketing campaign materials along with PR announcements are published in Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms. However, in order not to be confused, one should have a planned strategy to determine exactly which function will contribute to success of the brand. Besides, it is critical to establish clear lines of communication between all the functions and set correlated goals. If you have difficulties to separate social media marketing and public relations and to create a planned strategy, feel free to contact Aragil’s professional team for assistance. We will be happy to help you to get to success ! (Contact Us Now)In a nutshell, although social media has blurred the lines between marketing, public relations and social media marketing, they remain separated functions. For a mutual and beneficial success, they have to cooperate together.