What term refers to the collection of traditional media sources like radio newspapers magazines and television?

In the past, traditional forms of media were the only ways you could get your message out to the public. But in today’s digital landscape, there are a variety of new methods for reaching a mass (or niche) audience.

It begs the question, traditional media vs. social media. How do you decide which works best? Or do you need to decide at all?

Well, before you start waxing philosophical, let’s figure out what we’re really examining in the first place.

What is traditional media?

Traditional media refers to forms of mass media that focus on delivering news to the general public or a targeted group of the public.

Traditional forms of media include print publications (newspapers and magazines), broadcast news (television and radio) and, in recent years, the digital version of those media outlets, such as digital newspapers and blogs.

What is social media?

The term “social media” is used a lot these days to describe a variety of different digital platforms.

For the purpose of this piece, social media refers to social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc.

Where traditional media generally offers a wider audience pool, social media allows for more targeted distribution

If you’re pitching correctly, your earned media hits should be reaching a more narrow target audience. However, even the best of pitches distributed to the best of media outlets are still going to hit a broader audience than you originally set out to target.

After all, that’s half the reason why traditional forms of media were so coveted in the past. If your story aired on the 6 o’clock news, you knew your impression count was going to be through the roof.

Social media on the other hand, gives PR pros the opportunity to really target their messages, selecting everything from the demographics and geography of an audience to the time of day the post will go live.

Social media is immediate, while traditional can be delayed due to press times

Every PR pro has been there: you pitched a story in mid-September that doesn’t result in a finished piece until the following March. It happens.

Traditional media tends to have a longer timeline than social media. Not only can press times slow you down, pieces for traditional media tend to take longer to put together (think of all those hours drafting and distributing a pitch, connecting reporters with sources and providing useful imagery).

Social media posts are generally shorter, usually meaning they take less time to put together, and can be published immediately.

Traditional media pieces are more final, where social media is dynamic

For the most part, once a story is published on a traditional form of media, it’s final.

If you’re lucky, the reporter you worked with on a story may be willing to make changes after the fact to an online piece, but if your story hit newsstands or went live on television or radio, chances are it’s too late.

Because social media is a form of owned media, you have the control to make updates whenever you need to.

PR pros have the freedom to issue retractions, edit posts after they’re pushed live or even delete messages entirely. And since social media happens immediately, there is absolutely no delay between the time a change is needed and when it reaches audiences.

Social media offers more control over the message than traditional media

Similar to the above, where the PR pro controls the publication date and time of a social media post, social also offers greater control over the message.

Although you can’t control how the public will respond once the message is out there, you do have the opportunity to control what is said in the first place.

Social media is a two-way conversation, and traditional is one-way

The typical flow of a traditional piece looks a lot like this: the PR pro pitches the story, the reporter publishes the story and the public reads the story.

The cycle ends there, until it begins again.

With social media, the public has the opportunity to voice their opinions, and boy do they!

Read our pointers for dealing with a social media crisis.

Not only does the public expect to be heard when they share their opinions on a story or current event, they also expect the brand to respond. PR pros using social media in their day-to-day should be prepared to act fast and respond appropriately.

The best of both worlds

The media industry is rapidly changing, and PR must keep up to survive.

However, that doesn’t mean all of the old ways are obsolete.

As you can probably see from the above comparison, traditional media and social media both have their pros and cons.

Depending on the situation, the goal or the strategy, one method may work better than another for your brand.

Instead of thinking as traditional vs. social in the sense that one is slowly replacing the other, think instead of how the two tactics can work together to help you achieve your overall goals.

One important thing to remember whether incorporating traditional or social media (or both!)  into your scope of work is that your strategy needs to change depending on the medium.

Traditional media public relations tactics are going to be very different from the tactics you take on social media.

Need help getting started? Download our ebook to figure out how to seamlessly integrate social media into your PR strategy.

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