Traditional and Digital Media Difference: 16 Key Essentials

These traditional and digital media differences aren’t just interesting—understanding how social media differs from traditional media has a major impact on your social media success. Run your digital marketing campaigns the same way you run your traditional media campaigns, and you’re likely to see more damage to your brand’s reputation than benefit, in addition to wasting a lot of money doing it. Using modern tools like a video production editor or online Video Editor tool, and getting help from a video production company, can help create dynamic content that resonates with your audience, setting your campaign apart from traditional media efforts.

A lot has changed since I originally wrote this post way back in 2012, so it makes sense to update it now with new insights into the two communication channels and how to use each one effectively. In fact, so many changes impacted this post that we republished it to reflect the changes.

Traditional and digital media difference

To summarize the differences between these two communication channels, check out the table below, which I think outlines key differences in how to succeed with each channel. When I originally wrote this content, I identified 16 differences, although over time, new operational and functional differences emerged, and some differences disappeared. For instance, social networking is no longer truly free as organic reach has declined, with changes in the algorithms determining how messages spread across social platforms. Hence, I removed this element from the table.

Highlights: Traditional and digital media differences

The value difference

If you think about it, it’s pretty obvious that there are vast traditional and digital media differences, like those listed in the table above. Traditional media provides value through subsidizing content — free TV and radio programs, lower-cost magazines, and chances to win prizes.  In exchange for this content, we ALLOW advertisers to interrupt our day to tell us about their products. In fact, soap operas get their name from historical sponsorship trends that overwhelmingly involve cleaning products.

The difference between traditional and digital media is that social platforms — Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc — are already FREE, and the content is provided by other users, including companies. Hence, content doesn’t require sponsorship to ensure continued content is available to users. Thus, rather than paying for access to users, companies now pay by creating value for users. Using content teams trained in creating value for visitors is key to success in the digital marketing world.

Traditional and digital media differences in paid advertising success

Of course, technological changes now allow us to avoid much of the advertising paid for by content sponsors. Streaming services offer ad-free content on both TV and radio, while many users turn to YouTube rather than these services, which limits their exposure to ads. Increasingly, consumers prefer to pay for content rather than subject themselves to advertising. In part, at least, this preference comes from advertising that’s termed “spray and pray,” meaning ads are shown to wide audiences in the hope of reaching a target market without a clear targeting strategy. That’s the nature of traditional media. More on this later.

So, advertisers can’t expect us to allow them to interrupt us with commercial messages since they provide no value in exchange. I mean, face it, no one really LIKES commercials, with the possible exception of those created for the Super Bowl!

In fact, sports sponsorship and advertising offer an opportunity for brands to capitalize on content to ensure viewers see their commercials because, for the most part, viewers choose to watch sporting events in real-time, eliminating opportunities to screen out commercials, and, since streaming services don’t carry sporting events without ads, sports enthusiasts have limited opportunities to avoid commercials. Hence, traditional media still has a limited value to brands.

While the digital landscape has changed dramatically since this post was first written in 2012, this fundamental difference remains unchanged. For instance, organic reach on social platforms has declined precipitously as the owners sought value for shareholders through paid advertising. Another key difference came with the proliferation of AI for answering users’ queries rather than requiring users filter through a long list of possible links that might provide the answers sought.

Digital media has adapted to keep up with these changes. For instance, on social networks, we should see something called native advertising. According to Outbrain:

Native advertising is the use of paid ads that match the look, feel and function of the media format in which they appear.

Native ads are often found in social media feeds or as recommended content on a web page. Unlike display ads or banner ads, native ads don’t really look like ads. They look like part of the editorial flow of the page. The key to native advertising is that it is non-disruptive – it exposes the reader to advertising content without sticking out like a sore thumb

So, the key to making digital media work is to provide some other type of value — be it entertainment, information, support, or other types of rewards — in exchange for exposure to your commercial message.  The ratio can’t be 1:1. You have to provide about 90% value to 10% commercial messages. A good example is Taylor Swift. She shares cuts from her albums before they’re available in stores, as well as insider information about music and bands in exchange for joining her network.

Hence, you sometimes get messages about buying her album or tickets to a concert. Still, you remain a Facebook fan because you get value in other ways through your relationship with her page.

The ability to laser focus advertising on digital platforms

Traditional and digital media differences include a big difference when it comes to targeting, which translates into a higher ROI.

In a digital world, social media provides value through targeted advertising that fits our interests. Hence, after visiting a website, I might see a discount code shared with me on Facebook [this is implemented through Pixels linking your website with your Facebook profile]. That’s value and I don’t mind getting such offers.

In contrast, your ability to target existing and new customers is limited when using traditional media, with the exception of direct media. In fact, direct media shares much in common with digital media. Obviously, the result is much higher ROIs for digital versus traditional media. In fact, the conversion rate for traditional (as low as .05% for TV) versus digital media (as high as 14%) is dramatic, especially for B2B brands. That’s because the cost to reach your target market is much higher for traditional versus digital media, as you can see below.

Hence, marketers need to understand their target market ON EACH NETWORK so that messages appear tailored to the individual. While you may have a broad target market, the ones on Facebook may be entirely different from the ones on YouTube, and adapting your approach in each network is key to your success.

Neal Taparia, who runs FreeCell Challenge, explains, “When we promote our FreeCell games, our messages are always different across channels. For instance, with TikTok, you have to have unique short-form video content that is catchy and quirky to work well. That same video might not work as well on Facebook or Instagram.”

The higher ROI for digital media comes from the following:

• Improved personalization
• Better metrics to track performance that guide decisions
• Precise, laser-focused targeting that significantly reduces wasted effort
• Integration across media that allows you to track users across platforms to improve conversion rates
• Ability to retarget consumers after a visit
• The ability to manage leads that increase conversion
• Fast response to queries and complaints that improve customer satisfaction and reduce negative word-of-mouth
• Conversational content that generates secondary engagement

Paid, earned, and owned media on digital

Another of the traditional and digital media differences is the various elements of digital media, including paid, earned, and owned media. Traditional media only allows for paid media.

The notion of paid versus earned versus owned media drew marketers’ attention in recent years. In the past, marketers focused on owned media — posts to social networks on their own pages, profiles, etc. Even better, businesses own their other digital marketing tactics, such as their websites and email subscribers.

Now, they must integrate across owned media, paid media (Facebook ads, Ads, affiliate links), and earned media (sharing behavior that amplifies the brand message). As highlighted in the graphic below, this amplification offers a more profound increase in ROI from digital strategies than a focus on building platforms of owned media. In this example, we follow a message through 3 “generations” of engagement to see how quickly the message’s reach expands as the message moves from user to user through the network of connections created by the user.

The integration of email marketing into your digital strategy means more effort spent on collecting subscribers and managing your email marketing through platforms such as Salesforce, as well as using email marketing autoresponders to alleviate the workload. Since email marketing offers the highest ROI of any marketing strategy, this emphasis provides value.

Digital marketing is all about community

Digital platforms increasingly replace more traditional communities (with individual activities crowding out team and group activities even before the pandemic shut down entire swaths of people) and the ease of communication in these virtual communities draws billions of people into social networks and convinces them to spend significant time engaging in the social network, especially during the pandemic.

The trick of digital marketing success is to JOIN this community and harness its power rather than engage in traditional marketing communication.

So, rather than disrupting the conversation, join the conversation. Become an integral part of the community — someone everyone recognizes and welcomes because you share fun and interesting things with them.  Guy Kawasaki is a master of this and employs a staff to find and share interesting images, videos, and news at Alltop, and really interesting stuff is posted as “Holy Kaw” across several social platforms and websites.

Use the community. Studies and experience show people engage more when they’re a part of something.  So, ask the community to contribute content such as a cool video or suggestions for a brand name. This crowdsourced content draws new members to your community. For instance, I built a brand community on Facebook called my Social Media Marketing Tribe. Anyone can join, and we can share interesting tips we find, ask questions, get support for projects we’re working on, etc.

Conclusion

Well, that’s all the time we have for today’s discussion on the traditional and digital marketing differences. We’ll pick up our discussion of these differences in our next post.

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