The differences between social networking and social media are just as big as night and day. There are some main differences and knowing them can help you to gain a better understanding on how to maximize their usage for your brand and business.
1. The Definitions
Social media is a tool to send or share information with a broad audience. Everyone has their own opportunity to create and distribute information that they like to give. All that you need is an Internet connection and you’re ready.
On the other hand, social networking is an act of engagement. It can be a group of people with similar interests who associate together on social networking sites and build relationships through community.
2. Communication Style
Social media is quite alike to a communication channel. It’s simply an application to deliver messages, a media to communicate. Like magazine, television or radio, social media is not a place that you visit. Social media is a system that spreads information to other users.
However, in social networking, the communication is reciprocal. It mainly depends on the topic, subject or atmosphere. People gather to join others with similar experiences and backgrounds. Conversations are at the core of social networking and through them relationships are developed.
3. Return on Investment
It can be very difficult to get exact numbers to determine the ROI from social media. How do you put a numeric value on the buzz and excitement of online conversations about your brand, product or service? This doesn’t mean that the ROI is null, but it just means that the tactics that was used to measure are not the same again. For instance, influence, or the depth of conversation and what the conversations are about, can be used to measure the ROI.
Social networking’s ROI is a bit more obvious. If the overall traffic to your website is on the rise and you’re diligently increasing your social networking base, you can refer the rise in your website’s online visitors to your social efforts.
4. Timely Responses
Social media is a hard work. It takes a lot of time to expand. You can’t automate each individual conversations, otherwise you will be labelled as spammer. Unless you’re a well-known and established brand, building audiences doesn’t happen in such an instant way. Social media is definitely a long-term and not a sprint.
Since social networking is direct communication between you and the people who you choose connect with, the conversations will be richer, more purposeful and more personal. Your network grows as you meet and get introduced to other members.
5. Asking or Telling
A big no-no on with social media is skewing or manipulating comments, likes, diggs, stumbles or other data, for your own benefit (personal or business). Asking friends, family, co-workers or anyone else to cast a vote just to cast it, doesn’t do anyone much good for anyone and it can quickly become a PR nightmare if word leaks out about these dishonest practices.
Meanwhile, with social networking you can tell your groups about your new business or blog and discuss how to make it a success. The conversations that you create can convert many people into loyal fans, so it’s worth investing the time.
Social media and social networking do have some overlap. However, they really are not the same thing. Knowing that they are two separate marketing concepts can make a difference in how you position your business going forward.