Digital and social strategies are different although they both use social media as their platform. Whereas the former is purely a commercial application to the social media, the latter is anchored on the precepts of social lives and goes into the building of social relationships before introducing a commercial touch to the relationship. In that context, social and digital strategy could be distinguished by the presence in the following four aspects in social strategy. It is imperative to note that the digital strategy lacks the aspects.
Social strategies have the abilities to reduce the costs of transactions hence creating a willingness among the people to interact with the company and its products. Secondly, social strategy is strong at establishing relationships with strangers thereby facilitating an interaction that was previously unavailable. Thirdly, social strategy is appreciated for its ability to increase a willingness to pay among clients. These strategy aspects may occur in isolation or as a whole. Often, the remarkable difference lies in its ability to change the social life of the client. Often, after engagement with the social advertisement or the page, the client should be more willing and more informed of a company’s products and their attendant benefits.
Currently, in the market a number of company operations can be used for illustrative purposes in distinguishing the differences between the social and digital strategies. The companies that merely employ the social media for the advertisement of their products illustrate the digital strategies. However, those that ably apply the social strategies are those that go deep in the development of relationships among strangers in their platforms. A good example could be seen in the Nike use of NBA.com social website for advertisement purposes. In the Nike case, NBA.com suffices primarily as a platform for the formal and informal communication and relay for basketball information concerning the NBA league. Millions of subscribers use this site for connections, information gain and building social relationships. The main sponsor of the platform, which is Nike, employs the platform to catch the attention and concentration of the millions of subscribers. This has successfully facilitated the interaction process under which different consumer products from Nike is introduced to the subscribers through a number of channels within the platform. Contrast this occurrence to the Bank of America approach on social media such as Twitter. The Bank merely advertises its products on the social media. In the latter case, they come out directly as an advertisement effectively failing to capture the attention of the subscribers who see them as merely advertisements within the social media.
References
Boyd, D. M., & Ellison, N. B. (2009). Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship. Department of Communication, Information and Media Services, Michigan University.
NBA. (2013, March 28). NBA League pass. Retrieved March 29, 2013, from NBA: http://www.nba.com/
Peck, J. (2007, December 10). 50 Sports Social Networking Websites. Retrieved March 29, 2013, from Take a Peck: http://www.jasonfpeck.com/2007/12/10/50-sports-social-networking-websites/
