Differences Between Traditional Media & Social Media

In this scientific and technological ages, social media was mostly cover around the society, for example, Facebook is already become the world's popular social media platform according to the social research stated that Facebook having over 800 million active users in 2012(A Review of Facebook Research in the Social Sciences,2012). The figures of this research are not only showed that how popular Facebook, but also represented that social media platform is the trend nowadays. So compare and contrast with traditional media like TV, Radio and Newspaper, the reach and circulation of media, the number of social networking sites are apparently bigger than the former. There are separated two parts of differences between traditional media and social media.

Firstly, the differences between this two platform are the background. Traditional media is a mass media and target to mass market so it is a paid platform which is having a huge of financial support like TV, when the advertising and marketing agencies want to add some advertisements in TV especially in the special period, they need to avoid the expensive charge and competing with other agencies to get the popular period to encode their advertisements. The static analysis shows that the integrated operator with premium programming using per‐subscriber fees to reduce competition by supplies the content to the rival distributor. However social media is a one on one market in an open system so it is a free platform. Based on the coverage of smartphones is getting higher and higher, social media becomes an instant and convenient platform to communicate with the worlds, it is also a shortcut for advertisers and consumers to encode and deliver their messages. Consumer's need for uniqueness has a moderating effect on the influence of peer communication on purchasing products attitude. (Journal Of Interactive Marketing,2012).

Secondly, the differences between these two media platform are the content. In fact that traditional media is one-way communication to the mass market so the content of different advertisements focuses on the mass audience what is mean the polished content of advertisements will encode simultaneously. Such as when we watch a period of time on TV, we can see the famous brand ads with professional content broadcasting in the same period. In the other side, the social media platform is a two-way communication system so the content is likely closer than TV and the ads will be more authentic to the audience, for example, some advertiser on Facebook(FB) is like to use the user’s personal views what they after used the products to attract the FB user or they recently like to using FB live to interact with the followers for marketing strategy. So that the reason for social media is more user-friendly than traditional media is the open system compared with the closed system of traditional media.

After that, the media usage for consumers and advertisers between social media and traditional media is the kind of system differences because of social media is an open system for the user to enter the international interactive platform so it is an easier, convenient and effective channel contrast with closed minded traditional media. In the side of consumers usage, both traditional and social media are the free platforms for the user to deliver the message but the differences is most of the traditional media provides a combination of high-quality sight and sound, that means it can create an image appeal for consumers like TV always using eye-catching and repeating content in ads.

However, social media haven't a high image appeal of consumers as much as traditional media but consumers are more acceptable to receiving information from there compared with traditional media because of social media is an interactive system such as a lot of Facebook user likes to follow the pages or persons that they willing to receive more message from there or playing FB live between user and user. On the other side of advertiser usage, social media is more suitable than the traditional media to enter the platform because it is free to create the page to upload the ads. Although traditional media can draw the large group of audiences, it is most expensive. So that it is hard of the first step for advertisers to enter a platform to encoding their ads. Consider with the quicker and easier channel for advertisers provide ads, social media is the appropriate choice obviously.

Moreover, traditional media having a cost-efficient in archiving advertising objectives in contrast with social media because of the high reach like TV. Due to traditional media is a national mass media, the number of receivers is properly larger than social media so it is the best way to advertisers influence the audiences. According to Metro news report, the audience recorded more than 20 points of The World Cup live 2018 on ViuTV, so it about 1.38 million viewers and represented how high reach of a TV channel. In spite of TV is a high reach channel, social media having a high potential market which is a group of different independent platforms that calculated with user’s click as Facebook. The followers, likes, shares, and views of the Facebook page are significant conditions to calculate in archiving advertising objectives.

Consumers are preferred to watch ads on FB rather than TV based on there are more detailed information and more real demonstration of the ads to the user. The findings showed Facebook was a useful, cost-effective recruitment source for young-adult smokers to complete a survey. And one of the study state that in the pre‐ and post‐purchase stages, the usage intention for the online channel is higher when consumers have more favorable Internet experience. Despite traditional media can increase the brand awareness and build a positive reputation to the mass audience, the interactive social media is more effective to influence potential customers and it can make some information and persuasion by two-way communication to archiving advertising objectives.

Finally, in measuring the result between traditional media and social media, both are the platforms for advertisements to stimulate the product sale and build up the brand awareness. In terms of the product sale, social media apparently is an immediate and fast way to influence consumer purchases because online shopping is mostly covered on different social networking sites. For instance, the function of ‘messenger’ on Facebook is a text messaging services which are also an interactive connection for users. When the FB user feeling interested with the ads about the Jordan sneakers on the specific page like ‘Jordan Shoes HK’. They can text with the page manager immediately through the ‘messenger’ to get more details, sometimes it will provide an online payment to motivate consumer purchase the products.

However, Traditional media is a one-way communication system, it has not provided with an immediate platform for audiences to get more details about the ads and products or purchase product on TV, radio or some outdoor print ads instantly. But in the side of brand awareness, traditional media is more effective than social media because there are the results showed that exposure to television was significantly related to the brand awareness of even the youngest children. In general, not only brand awareness is important to measure the result of these two media, but also the reaction of consumer purchases. To sum up, due to the fact that social media is using a one on one marketing strategy, it is more interactive and effective to a user in media planning contrast with traditional media.