Social marketing

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Social marketing is a marketing approach which focuses on influencing behavior with the primary goal of achieving the "common good". It utilizes the elements of commercial marketing and applies them to social concepts. However, to see social marketing as only the use of standard commercial marketing practices to achieve non-commercial goals is an oversimplified view. Social marketing has existed for some time but has only started becoming a common term in recent decades. It was originally done using newspapers and billboards and has adapted to the modern world in many of the same ways commercial marketing has. The most common use of social marketing in today's society is through social media.^[1][2]

Traditional commercial marketing aims are primarily financial, though they can have positive social effects as well. In the context of public health, social marketing would promote general health, raise awareness and induce changes in behavior.

Social marketing is described as having "two parents". The "social parent" uses social science and social policy approaches. The "marketing parent" uses commercial and public sector marketing approaches.^[3] Social marketing has started to encompass a broader range of focus in recent years and now goes beyond influencing individual behavior. It promotes socio-cultural and structural change relevant to social issues.^[4] Consequently, social marketing scholars are beginning to advocate for a broader definition of social marketing: "Social marketing is the application of marketing principles to enable individual and collective ideas and actions in the pursuit of effective, efficient, equitable, fair and sustained social transformation". The new emphasis gives equal weight to the effects (efficiency and effectiveness) and the process (equity, fairness and sustainability) of social marketing programs.^[5] Together with a new social marketing definition that focuses on social transformation, there is also an argument that "a systems approach is needed if social marketing is to address the increasingly complex and dynamic social issues facing contemporary societies"^[6][7]