Content Marketing vs Social Media Marketing: The Key Differences

When it comes to digital marketing, understanding the differences between content marketing and social media marketing is crucial. Just like the mug that holds your coffee is a staple and consistent, content marketing is a long-term investment. On the other hand, social media marketing is like the coffee itself, which you need to replenish continually. Let’s dive deeper into these differences and how to effectively use both strategies.

The Mug and The Coffee

Take coffee for example. The mug that holds the coffee is a staple. It is consistent; I’ve invested in it once, and as long as I take care of it, it will serve me well. In opposition, the opposite would be the coffee. I have to constantly buy coffee.

I’m constantly using it, and if I don’t keep buying coffee, I won’t get any coffee. Like a replenishable resource, it diminishes, and I have to keep getting it.

Content Marketing: The Mug

Content marketing is like the mug. I’ve invested in this.

If you invest in content, we’re looking at things that take a long time to get a return on investment. This could be a blog post, a podcast, or YouTube videos. These are things that, when you put them out into the universe, sit there and wait to mature and become something more. Sure, you can go viral with a YouTube video and get a couple of million views in a weekend if you really wanted to, but that’s not how it works for most people. What ends up happening is they make a hundred videos, and they do terribly, and then the 101st video starts to gain some traction.

Content serves a purpose; it helps people and matures with time.

Social Media Marketing: The Coffee

Social media, on the other hand, is like the coffee. If you don’t keep pumping out social media content, eventually your Instagram page, your TikTok page, whatever it is, will die. It will cease to exist, and no one will ever see it.

Every time you make a post, that’s why people say “post a lot, post a lot.” They don’t mean post content a lot, although they use that word. What they mean is post social media a lot.

What I’ve noticed with the big gurus is they’ll put all their energy into making content—the blog posts, the YouTube videos, the big webinars. They put a lot of energy into content, and then they usually take those snippets and make short-form social media, driving back to the content.

Because the content is what is king. That’s what they’re trying to improve because that improves SEO. If you’re doing a blog post, that improves retention and makes your YouTube channel bigger, which means you have a larger audience that is actively and really locked in and engaged with you.

Focus on Content First

Somebody who just likes your social media post might like you, but if they’re watching hours upon hours of your YouTube videos, they definitely like you.

They want to know more about your services and what you offer. From your YouTube channel, you can then move them up your value ladder. Maybe you offer a free lead magnet and try to get their email.

First, focus on content and get really good at it. If you can grow content without social media, awesome.

But it should not be your main focus. Your main focus is running the business, getting people in the door, and making sales. So don’t focus on social media. This was a mistake I made. I put all my eggs in the social media basket, figuring it would work, and it didn’t.

Then I switched to content. I said, let me focus more on content. My podcast started to do well; I started getting clients from the podcast, but that’s not what I focused 100% of my time on. 10% of my time was on the podcast. I would make a podcast episode, and then I would focus the rest of my day on the business—cold calling people, talking to my family and friends, and trying to get referrals.

Those types of things became the majority of my business day.

The Role of Social Media

Social media can be an extension of your content marketing strategy. When starting out, don’t focus so much on social media. It’s not going to help you.

Focus more on getting clients in the door first, and then the content. What you do today will still be around 10 years from now and will probably grow with the rest of your content as you get better and post more. It’s all going to grow together.

Social media is fleeting. I could post today and post again in three hours, and no one will see the first one, and half will see the second one, and then no one will see the third one.

I’ve posted things on social media, and my family never saw it. The people who love me, who follow me, and actively comment and like, sometimes never saw it. I would have to post hundreds of times for people to see it. In fact, I have done that. When I launched my first book, “The Dog Training Cheat Codes,” I posted relentlessly—three, four, five times a day for a whole month, and people still didn’t see it.

That’s my point exactly: social media doesn’t last.

Now, if I say that my book “The Dog Training Cheat Codes” is available, this piece of content on YouTube is going to live forever. Every single person who sees this video now knows about “The Dog Training Cheat Codes.” When I posted on social media with a tiny picture and a nice phrase that said, “Hey, you can get ‘The Dog Training Cheat Codes’ here,” ten minutes later, nobody saw it. It became a waste.

I was running on this treadmill, trying to run and run, instead of just investing in a nice mug. I got the paper cup, and tomorrow I have to get the paper cup again, and that’s not going to work.

Conclusion: Invest in Content Marketing

So, that’s my two cents: content marketing and social media marketing are very different. Don’t get them confused.

Don’t focus on social media just yet. Focus on content marketing first. Really, first focus on the business—getting people in the door, working on your sales and presentation. Then content marketing becomes really easy, and social media is just an extension of content marketing.

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