General

The underlying logic of advertising, content marketing, and social media marketing is different, and different marketing methods require targeted strategies. This article introduces how to distinguish and understand advertising, content marketing, and social media marketing, hoping to inspire you.

Originating from a member's question, his meaning is that his company's thinking and methods remain focused on advertising thinking, and use advertising marketing logic to do social media and content. He has differences with the company and asked me how to communicate... After all, I am not a member of his company, and I can only popularize science to understand them correctly.

01

Firstly, it should be recognized that the underlying logic of advertising, content marketing, and social media marketing is different.

If we refer to information carriers such as text, video, and voice as content, and then say that marketing using these carriers is called content marketing, then in reality, there is no point in discussing them. Of course, are those content? It's the content. Is China's Voice, Olympics, and Super Bowl content? It's also the content. But it would be too untimely to call it content marketing, such as advertising for flat videos, posting on social media Weibo, or even writing a press release.

Content marketing is first and foremost a change in thinking that aligns with the changing roles of content as society develops. Advertising is certainly content, and how to advertise, distribute, and monitor advertising can be seen as a part of content marketing. However, times have changed, and roles have also changed.

In the early days, television was like videos, newspapers were like stores. Later on, with the advent of the internet, it began to shift to portal websites and online videos. Later on, when mobile internet was used, everyone was cut off by apps... IMC integrated marketing communication has been talked about many times. The so-called integration in the past was actually the integration of media, and then all media only transmitted one voice - to achieve this effect, we can only rely on content. If we only rely on tying the media together to achieve a certain effect, it is impossible.

Until now, we are actually in a pan social era - how can we retain people without content? And it is still an era of algorithmic markup, with the biggest feature being - from finding consumers to consumers coming to you. In the past, when advertising was done, the most common pursuit was subjective pursuit of making the advertisement itself "good", followed by targeting the audience and region, without considering whether the content itself had an impact.

Now, as long as you produce content that interests the target consumer, algorithms can help you match it to the target consumer - the more "right" content you produce, the more content will be pushed to the target consumer.

In the past, people pursued the idea of turning advertisements into artworks. Advertisements should be well crafted and creative, which is a tacit consensus in the traditional advertising industry. Why emphasize this so much? Because this is how creative agents can sell and bid. Of course, this is not to say that content does not require creativity, but rather that it is inappropriate to view advertising as a framework for content production and social media as a publishing platform for advertising.

The current situation is that advertisements are becoming increasingly lifeless or fleeting. The average lifespan of advertisements nowadays is not even 3 days, and consumers only need an average of 0.4S to determine whether they are advertisements or content... The reason why we see more and more advertisements is that the lifespan of advertisements is getting shorter and shorter. Therefore, in the past, only one advertisement was needed in a month, but now it is only 10. Can advertising costs increase significantly? On the contrary, if a company can produce and distribute content on its own, the cost will be significantly reduced.

02

Social media marketing is a part of content marketing, which is a means of digital marketing. Understanding content marketing is actually equivalent to understanding social media marketing. At least, it must be clearly recognized that social media marketing is not advertising, and using advertising ideas cannot accurately guide social media marketing.

The underlying logic of advertising is based on the bullet theory in mass communication, with a communicator centered stance, typically treating consumers/audiences as undifferentiated individuals for saturated communication. Emphasizing unique selling points (USPs), simple and clear content with high frequency, and repeated touch, the mechanism that works is to establish brand awareness, occupy consumer minds, and contribute to sales through a funnel model.

Transmission is a brand proposition aimed at letting consumers know about content with uniform and constant value. Although we also emphasize the digitization of advertising and the need for precise advertising, and although the advertising content will be personalized based on the target user, the overall information conveyed remains the same.

The underlying logic of social media marketing is based on interpersonal communication, with an audience centered approach and a focus on social circles and KOLs.

Social media marketing is a tool for interactive growth. It is necessary to collaborate with KOL to create diverse content in various scenarios and forms, integrate into the circle, increase interaction with users (such as referrals, likes, and collections), enhance user satisfaction, and stimulate purchase conversion. Moreover, social media is a public opinion forum where everyone can speak, so the marketing content can not be stereotyped. If two KOLs send the same content, you will also be disgusted

This environment is more suitable for content based marketing, rather than advertising from a corporate perspective. Even advertising should be original and involve consumers in content co creation, otherwise everyone will be very disgusted.

So far, people still enjoy watching advertisements, and I think the Huanong brothers are outstanding. If we follow the thinking of traditional advertising, then the Huanong Brothers, who are so vulgar, should be cut to pieces by them. Content marketing and social media marketing cannot be produced completely based on the traditional advertising theory. If they do, they will only fall into a strange circle: values/public service announcement>creative advertising>product display advertising (sponsorship implantation>KOL grass planting>live delivery>hard advertising).

This inertia of thinking can lead to a state where the brand is always held in its own mind and in the minds of consumers, which can lead to distrust of KOL, concerns about dilution of brand claims, unattractive content not appearing on the market, and a large amount of resources being invested in value advertising and creative advertising. The result is likely to be: content becomes advertising, and people do not see it; The content is too small to see and interact with you

03

In content marketing, what we usually refer to as content is divided into BGC produced by the brand itself, PGC and UGC that cooperate with platforms, as well as KOL and KOC. However, UGC is actually the ultimate goal of each brand. Is there a UGC actually a symbol of whether the relationship between the brand and consumers is close enough, after all, if consumers have no interest in you, they will be willing to produce UGC for you?

The content of social media marketing should follow a pyramid like model from top to bottom, which can simply divide the content into top values/creative content, middle end product marketing content, and bottom end live streaming sales, KOC grass planting, etc. Under this thinking, the closer to the top, the higher the content value.

In addition, the division of BGC, PGC, and UGC is only based on the identity of the producer, and it does not mean what the content itself needs to be divided into. Therefore, it is necessary to give up subjective emotional judgments and only make value judgments on whether the content is suitable or not.

This is because the content needs to be integrated with the circles, which do not have any special colors.

This is the big data display of driving Cadillac, they often go to KTV, foot washing city... should Cadillac stop production?

Social media is audience oriented, and the circle is often composed of audiences with similar interests. Different circles have different expressions, so the content needs to be based on the characteristics of the platform and circle, integrated with KOL content, to cater to their preferences, and establish a three-dimensional and rich brand image.

The middle class white-collar workers of Little Red Book and Kwai Laotie are different. Their favorite content styles are very different. If brands want to enter these two platforms, they must need different content. Is the content of Little Red Book more advanced than that of Kwai?

For example, on Bilibili, even on the same platform, UP owners vary greatly. If you are a food brand and want to collaborate with different UP owners, such as Huanong Brothers, Sheep Cuisine, and other game UP owners, can you use the same content? Is the content of Huanong Brothers worse than that of sheep cuisine? Is their photo of a food unboxing worse than the brand's own advertisement?

Obviously, your answer is also negative.

For example, spending millions of dollars on a video to plan and design advertisements for bald nights can definitely beat the grass planting video on Little Red Book? It may not even be as good as the toothpaste recommended by your neighbor while chatting with you

Another problem is that many people think that content marketing, media marketing, is to be like Durex... In fact, this is totally nonsense, just like the so-called new media marketing, which is to ask a small editor to write some official account every day, and also hope to use this lever.

To do a good job in content marketing, one must first have the correct content marketing mindset. Apart from what was mentioned at the beginning, is your product content? Is your product packaging the content? Is the feeling and evaluation of your product after use the content?

I can assure you that this is also content, as the influence boundaries of content have long spread beyond advertising.

For example, channels are becoming more and more fragmented, such as offline, convenience stores, supermarkets, community group buying, unattended retail, and other new forms of retail. For example, online, there were only Taobao and JD.com before. Now, we media e-commerce, social e-commerce, and more and more media e-commerce, such as Tiktok, Kwai, and even Li Jiaqi, how do you define him, anchor or channel?

Once again, you can see that the channels themselves are also undergoing changes. Tmall JD has various marketing IPs, and the essence of marketing IPs is to use content to drive users and leverage traffic growth. Their every IP activity requires wave after wave of content production, rather than just paying for the brand. The brand also needs to create content that matches the IP. This is especially important for reading Little Red Book

For example, even if the same product is placed in an office building or in a university, do you think their preferences for the product are the same? Do men and women have the same preference for the same product? Can your product be transformed like different promotional activities targeting different groups? I think it is feasible. For example, it is possible to create some attractive co branding for women, at least by changing the product packaging and transforming it into content

Going further, what is your corporate strategy? What is your brand and marketing strategy? So what about your content marketing strategy? How do you plan for content marketing?

How to create your own content for a brand? First of all, you need to do a good job in BGC. From the fundamental perspective of content, BGC is the brand's official website, social media, and even your product, product packaging, brand expression, content matrix, and even the founder's words and deeds story... In general, it is nothing more than understanding what kind of information consumers will need. The brand should act as an expert to release this information so that they can see it.

Unlike BGC, PGC is also a high-quality content that can attract consumers' active attention. Its main function is to expand brand awareness and obtain traffic... Those big V, KOL, and so on are actually in PGC. In theory, the naming and sponsorship of variety show, TV dramas and activities are also a form of PGC cooperation. Of course, the ultimate goal is still to produce UGC.