A tweet by Jason Falls of Social Media Explorer got my attention yesterday. There was some serious coverage recently about GM’s decision to leave Facebook’s advertising in the dust due to a lack of results. David Scott’s request to stop confusing social media marketing and advertising on social sites was thought provoking and full of rich content.
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While these two are definitively experts in their respective fields, I am not. My expertise lies in CMS consultation, project management, web development, and analysis. So I thought I’d take a stab to make this as simple as I see it. There’s obviously more to each word, but I think there’s a fundamental difference which I can sum up into one phrase.
Advertising is about selling your story. Marketing is about telling your story.
I’ve been known to oversimplify matters at times, but this is as simple as I see it. This is why business blogging and social media are such different mediums from the likes of television. People know when they’re being sold something rather than being engaged in a story. Both are related which is easy to confuse them, but the experience of each is unique. One letter difference. One world of difference.
Share! What’s your definition?
