Digital Marketing Tips

What is digital marketing?

Digital marketing is a broad term that encompasses any type of brand promotion in the digital space, from social media to blog posts to paid advertising.

Marketing is a general term that refers to content that has:

• A sales goal (for example, a Facebook ad for a clothing line’s summer sale).
• General brand awareness and education (for example, that same clothing line sharing tips on Instagram for how to wash their items).

The benefit of digital marketing is that it’s more scalable than traditional or offline marketing.

Traditional market tactics include billboards, print magazine features, event marketing, direct mail, and in-person presentations, to name a few techniques.

The opportunities presented by digital marketing for brands are limitless.

Types of Digital Marketing

Before pursuing a plan for your business, it’s important to understand the different types of digital marketing and the opportunities each presents.

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is a form of digital marketing that, as the name suggests, takes place on a social media platform.

There are dozens of social media platforms that each have more than 100 million active users, but most brands focus on the most prominent for marketing their brands:

• Instagram
• TikTok
• Facebook
• X (previously Twitter)
• LinkedIn
• YouTube
• Pinterest

• Social media, while incredibly powerful, is a borrowed platform. A digital marketing strategy can’t rely solely on social media because you don’t own your followers or channel subscriber list.

  Platforms change, become obsolete, shutter, get banned by the government, and mistakenly suspend accounts without review. While your Instagram account or YouTube channel may be free, you metaphorically rent the space on the platform because you can be evicted anytime without notice or cause.

  Social media is a wonderful place for lead generation, but you have to capture those leads. This fuels the need for another form of digital marketing: content that you own.

  Proprietary Marketing Channels

  The goal of social media marketing isn’t to simply build an audience; it’s to build an audience and inspire them to follow you from social to a proprietary marketing channel that you own.

  There are many proprietary marketing channels that businesses own, with some of the most common being:

  • Website, blog, digital shop, etc.
  • Email list and SMS list
  • Company mobile app
  • Client or contact roster