Social media is continuing on the rise and these growing demands are

making it the most used platform in the world . There are exactly more

than 1 Billion people publicly active on all of the social media platforms

combined and the growing demand in the near future is only making it

sky-rocketing . Professionals are still claiming social media is “on the

rise. The worldwide social media analytics market is set to grow from

$1.6 billion in 2015 to $5.4 billion by 2020. Are we still defining it as

“rising” because we are expecting it to eventually plateau? Or is it

because we are still comparing it to traditional media, which did rise and

eventually began to decline?

I believe that this sense of “either/or” is wrong and that we need to look

at the two together, from both a measurement and programming

perspective.

 

Here are a few of the reasons that there are immense differences

between traditional and social media:

 

1. Social media reaches a maximum audience, while traditional

media’s audience is generally more targeted.

2. Social media is versatile (you can make changes once

published), whereas traditional media, once published, is set in

stone.

3. Social media is immediate, while traditional can be delayed due

to press times.

4. Social media is a two-way conversation, and traditional is

one-way.

5. Social media often has unreliable demographic data, but

traditional media is more accurate.

 

There is a Shift in Mentality among the people .

When we rely on social media to replace traditional media in scenarios

where budgets are tighter or turnaround is shorter, it seems like an

unjustified decision. There are places where social media cannot replace

traditional — such as developing strategy for regions without strong

online presences, or when self-reported demographic data will not

suffice.

Therefore, thinking about both as steps within finding, converting and

keeping customers seems like a mentality shift we all need to make. This

has already proven true.

According to Neilson , 92 percent of consumers trust earned media such

as word-of-mouth. In many brands’ eyes today, a perfect closed loop of

mixed media efforts would mean that the content first went viral, and

then changed consumer sentiment toward a buying decision. Looking at

strategies focusing on the changing consumer rather than the type of

media may help us become better content strategists.

Where do we begin to change and shape the way professionals think

about this media battle? At the core of it, educational systems are

changing the curriculum in marketing programs to focus on social

media.

A resume from a candidate that focuses only on social media marketing

would likely be too siloed.

 

Four years ago, U.S. News & World Report published a piece on avoiding

social media MBAs. Since as early as 2010, schools have been offering an

MBA in social media marketing alone. Closing the loop means focusing

on social media marketing as a subset, but layering in other expertise,

such as big data analytics, storytelling, viral marketing, data visualization

and traditional journalism.

For companies and brands that are disrupting the status quo, this battle

is over, and new-age marketing has begun.

This war of Social media and traditional media will continue to rise up

till the evolution of Mankind .I hope that you’ve liked this article.