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Social media marketing is the planned use of social platforms and the interactions they enable to achieve marketing goals. It can help an organization build its brand, engage an audience, generate traffic or leads, support sales, and learn from customers. It is broader than posting: it can include content, conversation, paid promotion, social listening, customer relationship work, and measurement.
What social media marketing means
Gartner defines social media marketing as “the use of social media platforms to connect with audiences to build the company’s brand, increase sales and drive website traffic.” Gartner’s definition captures common goals, but organizations may also use social activity to support customer service, understand audiences, or strengthen relationships.
A broader strategic view comes from marketing researchers Fangfang Li, Jorma Larimo, and Leonidas C. Leonidou. They describe social media marketing strategy as an integrated pattern of activities that turns social networks and interactions into means of achieving marketing outcomes. In practical terms, the strategy connects what an audience is motivated to do on social platforms with deliberate engagement and business objectives. Their peer-reviewed framework treats this as a strategic discipline, not simply a publishing schedule.
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The work can combine several activities, selected to suit the organization’s audience and goals:
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- Content: creating and sharing material relevant to a chosen audience.
- Engagement: talking with followers and customers, responding to them, and encouraging useful interaction.
- Paid promotion: using targeted advertising alongside unpaid, or organic, activity.
- Listening and learning: following conversations and using what people say to inform customer service, product learning, or relationship management.
- Measurement: tracking metrics that correspond to the goals, rather than treating follower count or posting frequency as success by themselves.
The American Marketing Association advises documenting goals, tactics, and metrics, including goals specific to each platform account. Its marketing FAQ and social media strategy guide frame content, advertising, engagement, audience, platform choice, and measurement as connected decisions.
Four common strategic approaches
Li, Larimo, and Leonidou’s scholarly taxonomy distinguishes four types of social media marketing strategy. These are useful lenses, not rigid boxes: a real organization may combine them or shift emphasis over time.
| Approach | Main emphasis | Typical purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Social commerce | Transactional activity, such as promoting and selling | Support purchase or other commercial actions |
| Social content | Branding, communication, and content that attracts audience response | Build awareness and encourage engagement |
| Social monitoring | Listening to and learning from social activity | Develop market knowledge or inform products and services |
| Social CRM | Managing customer relationships through interaction | Cultivate customer value and loyalty |
Approaches can also be compared by their objective (transactional versus relationship- or learning-oriented), the direction of interaction (brand to customer, customer to brand, or customer to customer), and the level of engagement sought. That is why two organizations using the same platform can have very different social media strategies.
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A useful plan links a business objective to an audience, specific activity, and a way to assess progress. The American Marketing Association’s beginner course covers connecting objectives to sales and growth goals and planning content around audience, tone, relevance, frequency, and quality. Its Social Media Marketing course is one professional learning resource.
- Choose the objective. Decide what the organization wants to accomplish, such as brand building, audience engagement, traffic, leads, sales support, or customer learning.
- Identify the audience and relevant platforms. Base the choice on where the intended audience is active and what the organization can support; no single platform is right for every goal.
- Set account-specific goals. Define what each selected platform account should contribute rather than applying one undifferentiated target everywhere.
- Plan content and interaction. Decide what to share, how to respond, and whether paid promotion or listening activity has a role.
- Select measures that match the objective. Choose indicators that show progress toward the goal, then use the results to adjust activity.
Social media marketing versus related terms
Digital marketing
Digital marketing is the wider field. Social media marketing is one part of it, alongside methods such as online advertising, search marketing, and content creation.
Social media marketing strategy
Social media marketing refers to the planned activities; the strategy is the organized pattern of choices that guides those activities. It connects audience motivations and engagement to intended outcomes.
Social marketing
Social marketing has a different traditional meaning: applying marketing knowledge and techniques to influence behavior where the intended benefits primarily accrue to the audience or society, rather than to the marketer. The American Marketing Association distinguishes this from commercial marketing carried out on social media. See its social media archive.
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