Final answer:
Social marketing shares core principles with traditional strategies such as reaching an audience and engaging them, but it leverages new technology to do so more effectively and with instant interaction. Although traditional media like TV still have significant reach, social marketing has changed the landscape by introducing more precise targeting and direct communication with audiences.
Step-by-step explanation:
The similarities between social marketing and previous marketing strategies can be seen in terms of the fundamental principles of reaching and engaging an audience. Historically, marketing strategies aimed to convey messages and promote engagement through various mediums, like television, radio, and print advertisements. Today, social media serves a similar purpose but does so on digital platforms where the audience can interact directly and instantaneously with the message.
As the importance of the Internet and social media in campaign strategies increases, it offers a way to deliver targeted messages inexpensively to a broader audience. Traditional mediums like television still play a vital role due to their wide reach, particularly among demographics not as engaged with technology.
Overall, strategies in social marketing, as used effectively in Barack Obama's presidential campaign, utilize the networking, collaborating, and community-building potential of social media. This can be compared to the older strategies that also sought to create a sense of community and shared purpose but without the immediate feedback loop or the same level of targeting and personalization that social media platforms offer.