Social Media vs. Messaging Apps: What Brand Marketers Need to Know

Good days are here for brands, at least in terms of the options they have for customer outreach. Earlier, social media helped businesses connect to the audience and now messaging apps have also become a powerful way to boost user engagement.

Both social media and messaging apps are now a significant marketing tool and sort of a direct channel to reach to their existing as well as potential customers easily. However, out of both the choices, marketers need to settle on the best strategy for engagement.

Before deciding between social media and messaging apps, it’s always better to know a few things, including –

  • Brands should understand that while social media is good for one-to-many conversations, chat apps will be good for one-to-one interactions
  • While messaging apps are good for connecting with the individual customer in an intimate and meaningful way, social media is good for a bigger outreach with many customers
  • While there is not much difference between the social network and messaging apps, brands can benefit from them only if they completely understand their features

Naturally, social media is different to messaging apps in a subtle manner and marketers must understand that while using either of them for brand promotion purposes.

Here are a few things brand marketers need to know in regard to social media and messaging apps –

1. A solid strategy in regard to customer support

The landscape of customer support is changing, and brands need to sense the pulse of their customers in order to cater them perfectly. An effective customer support strategy has become the need of the hour to boost brand presence and deliver value to their customers.

Brands should understand that social media is effective for customer support and could be beneficial in giving answers to common questions about products and services. They are helpful only in cases where one-to-many conversations are the need of the hour.

On the other hand, messaging apps are quite helpful when the goal is to connect directly and on an individual level. Brands can use these apps when the focus is to solve issues on a case-by-case basis for which social media is largely incapable of in a true sense.

However, the choice will always with brand marketers to decide which of the two – social media or apps – to go ahead with and use customer service tools accordingly. Only then brands can achieve their targets easily and smoothly.

2. Advertising within the data privacy standards and personalization

Brands need to recalibrate their advertising strategy with the focus on not letting targeted ads cross privacy boundaries easily. The problem with social media channels is that promotion through them is large of one-to-many type as anything you post on them becomes accessible to the public at large. Even if the ads are mostly spot on, they lack the intimacy and privacy that is the demand of the current market.

So, the use of social media may not sit well with the target audience that is more inclined towards having ads in a subtle manner.

On the other hand, messaging apps are always good for private and more intimate interactions between brands and their target audience. Some of them even have security features in place like encryption which prevents their misuse. Plus, their ads are mostly aligned and cater to the target audience in a one-to-one manner and intimately as well.

They are also well within data privacy standard levels and personalization with them does not feel odd for either brands or the target audience. That’s why messaging apps are always a better choice in terms of connecting to the audience personally.

3. The push to e-commerce through a viable marketing channel

Social shopping is the new wave waiting to take the world by storm. Social media is now being seen as a wonderful platform for an impulse purchase and brands can target the audience based on search preferences and interests. Which means, social media can help brands present to customers the same thing they have been searching for and this can help drive the sales cycle easily.

On the other hand, messaging apps are seen quite a helpful tool for discovering and sharing product as anyone can view product and share with anyone on a one-to-one basis. These apps can be a great bet for boosting e-commerce for any brand and with new features being added on a regular basis, brands should seriously think about benefiting from them.

In overall, it’s true that both social media and messaging apps are quite effective for brands and can help turn things around if just a bit of planning and investment. So, your business should take the step to benefit from social media consulting services and realize its true potential easily. This is what every business looks to achieve and prosper along the line.



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