Networking or Marketing

What is your focus in the social sphere? Networking, Marketing? Whichever it is there is a difference, and one that many people tend to blur. Networking and marketing are two entirely separate strategies and methods for their own unique goals. While many strategist employ the usage of both to further their means, we cannot make the mistake of misnaming one type of social ideology with the other.

Networking

A Social Network as put by Wikipedia is:  a social structure made of individuals (or organizations) called “nodes,” which are tied (connected) by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.

When it was decided to take social networking out of the face-to-face daily contacts that we have and turn it into an online craze, Social Networking turned into another type of game; Not the game of high school’s, who’s most popular, but rather a game of who has the most important and useful contacts. Whizzes like Mary Kurek (@marylkurek), and Chuck Hester (@chuckhester), base the majority of their time seeking out contacts, making connections, and being a hub for others whether job hunting, client hunting, sponsorships, any possibility of business networking.

One of Mary’s recent blog posts, outlines what could be taken as her procedure for social networking. By bringing every person into the hub and keeping an eye on their activity, Mary can look at one connection and say, “Hey! I know someone who can help you out with _____.” Providing utility and quality for these networks everyone benefits.

On the other hand Chuck Hester, is more of a Live maven for these networking events. By hosting LinkedIn Live Raleigh, Chuck has managed to pull off events of over 500+ professionals from every walk of life to come together and simply do what people do best, socialize. In one way, this is exactly what Mary does, but on the other side, it’s entirely different. By simply bringing local professions together and simply having them in the same room, people will naturally begin to talk and find out about each other. So should one person find another who suits their need, wham bam business card exchange, they’re good to go.

This, is Networking.

Social Marketing

Marketing defined by the Business Dictionary is the, “Management process through which goods and services move from concept to the customer. As a philosophy, it is based on thinking about the business in terms of customer needs and their satisfaction.” (The italics are mine for emphasis.)

Yeah, it’s different.

If you’re in marketing, you know the 4P’s, and while marketing uses these concepts, we could probably agree that Social Networking comes into play when you need to reach out, whether through promotion, distribution, etc. Networking becomes a part of marketing but is not a replacement.

From my perspective, and this is not an exhaustive explanation, social marketing is the ability to provide a presence; the presence for customer service, promotion, ad placement, whatever way one chooses to look at the term “presence”. Although there are many niches to marketing, like international marketing, strategic marketing, research marketing, the list goes on, they all are to reach a goal. The goal for marketing is to complete the need or want of a client while keeping them satisfied so that they can come back again and again for the excellent service or product they expect.

Managing the way the product is viewed, sold, and using proper customer service social marketing is giving managers a way to less expensively monitor the activity around the product and respond accordingly.

The two concepts of social networking and social marketing are vastly different. Which are you? Which do you do better? Mix or choose one.

LinkedIn – Mary Kurek

LinkedIn – Chuck Hester

Image by TheScatteredImage