Social Media Marketing
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Quick definition
Social media marketing is the use of social platforms to promote a brand, build an audience, and drive measurable business results, through both content and advertising. It typically blends organic posting, paid promotion, and creator partnerships.
What is Social Media Marketing?
Social media marketing covers everything a brand does on social platforms to build awareness, grow an audience, and drive traffic or sales: posting, community management, paid ads, and creator and influencer partnerships. It sits at the intersection of marketing and customer communication, since social platforms serve as both a broadcast channel and a direct line to customers.
Most brands run a mix of organic activity (regular posting, community engagement) and paid activity (boosted posts, targeted ad campaigns) together rather than choosing one approach exclusively. The balance between the two typically shifts based on budget, growth stage, and how competitive a brand’s category is on a given platform.
Social Media Marketing Channels
Today’s major channels are Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, and X, each with different audience demographics, content formats, and advertising capabilities. A brand’s channel mix typically depends on where its target audience actually spends time and what content formats suit its product. A B2B software company and a consumer beauty brand will reasonably prioritize very different platforms within the same broader social media marketing strategy.
Organic vs. Paid Social
Organic social media marketing relies on unpaid posting: content distributed through a platform’s algorithm to followers and, in some cases, a wider discovery feed, without direct spend behind it. Paid social involves running ads, boosted posts, in-feed ads, and Story ads that a brand pays to place in front of a targeted audience, regardless of whether that audience follows the account.
Organic builds longer-term brand presence and community, while paid delivers faster, more predictable, and more targeted reach. Most mature social strategies use both rather than treating them as substitutes.
Social Media Marketing vs. Influencer Marketing and UGC
Social media marketing is the broader umbrella, covering a brand’s own posting, advertising, and community management across platforms.
Influencer marketing is a specific tactic within that umbrella: partnering with creators to reach their existing audiences rather than relying solely on a brand’s own following.
UGC is content created by customers or creators that a brand can use across its own channels, in ads, on product pages, or reposted organically.
In practice, these three increasingly overlap. A social media marketing strategy can lean heavily on creator and UGC content along with the brand’s own content.
Measuring Social Media Marketing
Common metrics span the full funnel: reach and impressions for awareness, engagement rate for resonance, click-through rate and website traffic for interest, and conversion rate, CPA, or ROAS for bottom-line impact.
Which metrics matter most depends on the campaign’s actual goal. An awareness-focused push should be judged primarily on reach and engagement, while a performance campaign should be judged on conversions and cost efficiency.
Bring UGC Into Your Social Media Marketing
SideShift handles the creator side of your social strategy in one place. Source creators, manage briefs and content review, and track performance by creator and asset, so the UGC feeding your channels is produced and measured together. Post a brief and see who applies.
Frequently asked questions
How is social media used in marketing?
Brands use social media to build awareness, grow and engage an audience, drive website or app traffic, generate leads or sales, and provide direct customer communication, through a mix of organic content and paid advertising.
What is the difference between social media marketing and social media advertising?
Social media marketing is the broader practice, covering all activity on social platforms, organic and paid. Social media advertising refers specifically to the paid component, running targeted ads to reach an audience beyond a brand’s existing followers.
What is the difference between social media marketing and influencer marketing?
Social media marketing covers a brand’s overall presence and activity across social platforms. Influencer marketing is a specific tactic within that broader practice, partnering with creators to reach their existing audiences rather than relying solely on the brand’s own channels.