Digital and Social Media Marketing

Digital and social media marketing leverages platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X (Twitter), and TikTok to promote your brand, connect with your target audience, increase traffic to your website, and ultimately increase sales and revenue.

Digital Marketing no longer just a nice-to-have. With over 3.8 billion people using social media, organizations worldwide recognize that a successful digital presence is critical to overall success. The average person spends nearly two and a half hours a day on these platforms. For businesses, this means your customers are already there, you just need to find the direct way to meet them.

Effective digital and social media marketing requires that you create relevant content, engage and communicate well with your followers, keep a close eye on your results, and run social media advertisements. You must decide which content is right for which platform and adapt your voice to fit the varying audiences. On professional platforms like LinkedIn, you’ll want to use a very different strategy than the informal, trend-focused nature of TikTok.

For practitioners aiming to master this field, understanding the dynamic nature of the digital landscape is the first step.

While often used interchangeably in casual conversation, there is a distinct difference between these two terms. Digital marketing is the umbrella, while social media marketing is one of the most powerful spokes under that umbrella.

Digital marketing refers to any marketing effort that is displayed on an electronic device or the internet. This includes SEO (Search Engine Optimization), email marketing, PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising, content marketing, and social media. It acts as the key component of modern business.

Social Media Marketing is a specific subset of digital marketing that focuses exclusively on social platforms to drive brand reputation, community engagement, and lead generation.

To clarify the relationship, it helps to look at their strategic features and compare their goals.

Feature	Digital Marketing	Social Media Marketing
Scope	Broad (The entire digital ecosystem)	Specific (Social platforms only)
Primary Channels	Search Engines (Google), Email, Websites, Apps, Social Media	Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, X (Twitter)
Content Type	Blogs, Whitepapers, Banner Ads, Newsletters	Videos, Images, Stories, Comments, Direct Messages
Main Goal	Traffic, Conversions, and Sales across all touchpoints	Brand Awareness, Community Engagement, and Virality

Ideally, these two marketing strategies work in the same way toward a shared goal. For example, a Social Media Specialist might run a campaign on Instagram to drive traffic to a blog post, which is optimized by an SEO Specialist to rank on Google. This comprehensive approach ensures no opportunity is missed.

Why are companies investing into this specific digital marketing channel? It offers a strategic advantage over competitors who are slow to adapt.

Social media marketing focuses on strategy, planning, publishing, listening, engaging, reviewing analytics, and advertising. However, simply posting content isn’t enough. You need specific tactics to cut stand out in these saturated marketplaces.

One of the most common tactics is the “Rule of Thirds”. A social media feed should not just be advertisements. It should be fueled by:

This balance ensures you are not just pushing sales and helps to build trust in your brand’s authority.

Influencer marketing involves partnering with individuals who have a dedicated following and can sway the purchasing decisions of their audience.

This is one of the fastest ways to build trust. Consumers are often skeptical of corporate advertising, but they trust the people they follow.

By leveraging an influencer’s audience, you have the opportunity to reach target audiences and increase brand awareness among specific demographics you might not successfully reach organically.

Visual content collects more engagement than written content on social media, and video is currently the king of engagement.

A smart brand will curate its social media around video to boost engagement and dwell time (how long a user spends looking at your content).

Want to know what your competition is up to? One benefit of social media is easy marketing research. Everything your competitors do is public. A competitive analysis involves:

A key tactic is knowing what platforms you should focus your content strategy on to reach (and convert) your target audience.

• Facebook: Still the most popular platform globally. Best for reaching users between the ages of 30-65+ and building community groups.

• Instagram: Highly visual. Best for B2C brands (fashion, food, travel) targeting millennials and Gen Z.

• LinkedIn: The professional network. Essential for B2B marketing, recruiting, and thought leadership.

• TikTok: The fastest-growing platform. Best for informally reaching users via authentic, unpolished, trend-based video content.

• Pinterest: A visual discovery engine. Uniquely powerful for driving purchases in home decor, DIY, and lifestyle spaces.

Social media management tools enable you to automate, analyze, and look deeper into your social media accounts. Running business accounts shouldn’t be a manual, hands-on job 24/7. Modern digital tools provide user friendly platforms to manage complex campaigns.

Beyond simple scheduling, advanced digital marketers use social listening tools. Social listening monitors your brand’s social media platforms (and the wider web) for customer feedback and any discussions regarding specific keywords, competitors, or industries.

For example, a tool like HubSpot or Brandwatch can alert you every time someone mentions your company name, even if they don’t tag you. This allows you to find root causes for social conversations and implement changes to improve your marketing strategy.

The newest frontier in the toolkit is Artificial Intelligence. AI social media marketing leverages cutting-edge machine learning to automate tasks, generate content, and optimize campaigns at a scale beyond human capability.

AI is transforming the industry in three key ways:

Many legacy tools are integrating AI, but new players are emerging specifically for this niche:

• Jasper & Copy.ai: AI writing assistants that can generate months of social captions in minutes based on your brand voice.

• Midjourney & DALL-E: Generative art tools for creating unique visual assets.

• Lately: An AI tool that slices long-form content (like blogs) into dozens of short social media posts automatically.

A Social Media Specialist is responsible for creating and publishing engaging content on all social media platforms to grow a new audience, build brand loyalty, and ultimately, boost sales.

In larger companies, this role might report to a Social Media Manager or Digital Marketing Director. While the Manager focuses on marketing plans and budget, the Specialist is often the voice of the brand, handling day-to-day operations.

The standard job description on most job boards will likely list the following responsibilities:

To succeed in this field, you need a mix of creative and analytical abilities.

Is social media a growing field? Yes.

According to LinkedIn, Social Media Marketing is consistently one of the most in-demand hard skills. As businesses move away from traditional print/TV advertising toward digital channels, the need for skilled professionals who can navigate algorithms and analytics is soaring.

Social media is not hard to learn, but it does require continuous learning to master. Because of the emergence of new platforms and changing demographics, trying to stay-up-to-date with these complex concepts can be challenging.

To fast-track a career, many professionals pursue a Social Media Marketing Course. These programs structure the learning process, moving from academic theory to advanced marketing strategy.

Why get certified?

Ready to pivot to a social media marketing career? The following roadmap can help you get started:

Social media marketing is so new that finding a university with a dedicated program to teach it is rare. Most four-year institutions have not yet caught up to the speed of the industry.

However, having a degree or certification in Digital Marketing can be the way to get your foot in the door. These programs teach the strategic fundamentals of digital channels that apply directly to social media roles.

While some agencies are dropping degree requirements to prioritize portfolios, a formal certification signals to employers that you possess the professional training required to manage a brand’s reputation and lead their digital marketing efforts.