What’s the difference between social media and inbound marketing?
The two are so closely related that it’s hard to distinguish between them, sometimes. But actually, they differ in important ways. Important, that is, if you’re wondering how to sell your products / services online.
Social media is a sub-set of inbound marketing. It’s much easier to understand and manipulate than inbound marketing. Social media is to inbound marketing what a rowboat is to an ocean vessel.
It’s like writing a letter, versus developing an entire postal service.
What you consider to be social media may range from a narrow perspective, in which only the networks of Twitter-Facebook-LinkedIn and such are included, to a broad definition inclusive of almost anything about your business that exists on the internet.
Perhaps social media goes even further than that, extending to in-person meet-ups and Foursquare events.
Social media is a set of tools.
Inbound marketing is a state of mind.
Inbound marketing is about moving beyond a competitive economy to a branded one, where value is derived from observed behaviors and relationships that are relatively personal.
(Traditional business values subliminal seduction through mass communications.)
Social media’s easy. Inbound marketing’s hard. It’s tough to teach: it begs intuitive understanding.
More to come on this.
