Social Media or Social Networking

Five Key Differences Between Social Media and Social Networking

Understanding all the differences between social media and social networking is similar to comprehending every ranking factor Google uses for optimizing search engine results: it’s certainly not an easy task.

To truly grasp the topic, we must first define these terms. Based on the most reputable English dictionaries, the definitions are as follows:

Social Media: Forms of electronic communication (such as websites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (such as videos).

Social Networking: The creation and maintenance of personal and business relationships, especially online.

With these definitions in mind, let’s look at five key differences between social media and social networking:

Communication Style:

In social media, all conversations are initiated by you. You are distributing content, including images, videos, e-books, infographics, and more, aiming to engage with your followers and fans, hoping they will interact with your brand and eventually take action.

In social networking, it’s always a mix of listening and talking. If you’re joining groups and networks but only talking one way (just pushing out your content without listening to your audience), you may not gain the respect you deserve, and you’ll miss out on numerous opportunities.

To succeed in social networking, you must spend time listening and paying attention to the content generated by your audience.

Goals:

Perhaps the biggest difference between social media and social networking is the objective you are trying to achieve.

Through social networking, your ultimate goal is to create a network of fans and followers and build relationships. Whether these relationships lead to new business connections is uncertain, but building the relationship itself isn’t the final goal.

Social media is different because, while you’re trying to generate word-of-mouth marketing and engagement, you're also aiming to boost profits by gathering information to create potential customers and make sales for your e-commerce business.

Content:

Content is crucial for every aspect of marketing, and while you need it for both social media and social networking, the type of content you use in each is different.

In social networking, your content consists of extensive two-way conversations filled with rich dialogue. These are deep, informative discussions with people, hoping to establish a connection and gain a new follower while expanding your referral network.

In contrast, in social media, you're trying to create engagement, but you can’t do that with just a 250-word Facebook post. You need to share meaningful content like images, videos, infographics, and other types of media to keep the audience engaged and attract them to your brand.

Time and Effort:

If you are a brand active on social media, you are likely using tools like Hootsuite or Sprout Social to save time and evaluate the results of your efforts. These tools allow you to create content, schedule posts for future publication, and track the engagement they generate.

In social networking, there is no automated shortcut for growing and expanding relationships. Every interaction requires considerable attention and focus.

Networking is like building a relationship with someone special – it’s time-consuming and requires great effort, but the results are worth it in the end.

Measuring Return on Investment (ROI):

In this digital era, we’re constantly measuring ROI for everything we do, especially in social media.

How you relate ROI to social media and social networking activities is different because the nature of your actions in both realms differs. Measuring ROI from your social networking efforts is easier than from social media, as you often get direct responses—if your follower count is increasing, you can consider it a measurable return on investment.

However, since your social media strategy focuses on generating engagement and word-of-mouth marketing, measuring ROI is more difficult. Over a longer period, you should be able to attribute some successes to your efforts, but the process isn’t as straightforward as in social networking. Of course, if you're seeing sales growth and tracking your results, measuring your ROI becomes much easier.

In summary, social media and social networking are two important marketing tactics, but each presents its own challenges.

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