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Digital Marketing

Social Media

Comparing Paid vs Organic Social Media

Deciding between an organic or paid social media strategy can be challenging, but embracing both organic content and paid campaigns together may be the most effective choice as social media increasingly becomes a pay-to-play channel.

min read

Dec 24, 2023

Advertising

Social Media

Organic vs Paid Social Media

Organic and paid social media are two distinct approaches used by brands to reach and engage with their audience on social media platforms. Organic social media refers to the natural, unpaid use of these platforms to build and engage a community. This includes posting content, such as updates, photos, and stories, that appears in followers' feeds without paying for advertising through the platform's ad offerings. Organic social media relies on high-quality content, consistency, and effective strategies to demonstrate they will create engagement with users and grow your account followers. In contrast, paid social media involves paying for advertisements or sponsored content to appear in the feeds of a specific target audience, regardless of whether they follow the brand's page. Paid social media provides immediate reach and is often used for specific marketing campaigns or to boost visibility in a crowded digital space. This approach allows for precise targeting based on demographics, interests, and behaviors, offering quicker visibility and measurable results.

Organic Social Media is Difficult

While organic social media is increasingly more difficult for brands, this can also reflect a lack of content quality in organic content shared by brands. Meaningful engagement from organic content requires brands to create accessible and high-quality information, which does not always translate well outside of business priorities that determine social media investment. Many businesses prioritize immediate impact and sales goals, which are more easily measurable and achievable through paid social media. As a consequence, the time and resources needed to develop impactful organic content is often deprioritized. This creates a cycle where the lack of investment in quality organic content leads to reduced effectiveness, further reinforcing the preference for paid strategies. To avoid content quality issues, a realistic assessment of content strategy and trying new approaches will help balance business objectives and more effective investment in the creation of meaningful, engaging social content. Promotional organic posts, like product launches or new features, have their place. These can be strategically used without feeling intrusive, blending seamlessly with your overall social media presence.

Advantages of Organic Social Media

Organic social media is a vital part of a brand's digital strategy despite content challenges, algorithm preference for advertising, and frequent platform changes. Organic social content offers a unique opportunity for brands to promote themselves and their products without paying for each impression. While promotional messages do not perform well compared to other types of content, brands are still able promote their products or services with careful planning. The best approach is to minimize promotional content and invest in organic social media content that provides value in other ways, or at least in such a way that an average consumer will equate it to a sales pitch. This approach fosters a more authentic and meaningful connection with your audience, enhancing brand loyalty and trust in a way that paid advertising cannot replicate.

Brand Awareness

Any content your handle shares and receives engagement for will help raise brands awareness. Social media content goes hand and hand with your organic presence. This provides you with an opportunity to showcase your brand's unique personality, making your business more relatable and memorable. Brands and businesses achieve their most effective engagement on social media by focusing on authentic methods of delivering value, such as educating, motivating, and entertaining their audience. This approach establishes your brand identity as a source of reliable information, inspiration, and enjoyment, and also creates signals for the respective platform feed algorithm which will help your overall visibility.

Authenticity

Interacting with your audience through organic social media content offers a unique chance to connect on a more personal and authentic level. When a consumer chooses to engage with your organic channels, this interaction is driven more by their affinity for your brand or willingness to engage with your content in a meaningful way. By actively responding to comments and messages, you demonstrate attentiveness and create a sense of community among your followers. Taking this further to showcase user-generated content adds another layer of authenticity and trust to your brand image. Additionally, interactive events such as a live video session or Q&A event can provide a unique engagement opportunity which can be more meaningful through real-time communication with your audience.

Customer Service

Over half of today's consumers actively engage with brands through social media, making customer and community management an essential aspect of a brand's organic online presence. This interaction provides a direct and cost-free way for customers to connect with brands, offering instant feedback, inquiries, and engagement. As a result, maintaining a responsive and interactive social media presence is crucial for brands to meet customer expectations and foster community relationships. This need for direct, organic interaction remains highly valued, and many brands and businesses have active customer service channels through their social media handles. It also allows you to understand your audience's needs and preferences with a new qualitative layer of data, leading to more tailored and effective communication strategies.

Advantages of Paid Social Media

Paid social media involves using paid advertising tools to target specific demographics, interests, and behaviors with ads that appear in users' feeds. These ads, including sponsored posts and display ads, allow brands and businesses to precisely reach their target customer profiles. The cost is based on a bidding system where advertisers bid for ad placement, offering a way to quickly and effectively reach a larger audience with more control over viewership. Targeting specific groups increases the chances of sales based on the unique needs and attributes of your target audience. Paid social media may lack the authenticity of organic methods, but the ubiquity of advertising makes distinguishing between paid content and organic less of an issue and brands still have the ability to build genuine connections with their audience. The benefits of paid social media is centered around the ability to promote content beyond existing followers to specific audience groups only available through advertising tools in the respective social media network.

Sales Tracking

While cost can be prohibitive for businesses with limited budgets, platforms like Facebook allow for the tracking of conversion data and provide a large amount of social media analytics for advertisers to understand and justify continued investment. One major advantage of paid social media is these precise analytics, which provide detailed insights into audience behavior and ad performance, like impressions, clicks, and lead conversions. This data helps businesses optimize their strategy and reach specific audiences which are accessible through targeting options in the social network advertising suite. However, this method can be costly and demands time and resources to craft effective ads that will have enough of a return on advertising spend (ROAS) to justify the initial investment.

Content Visibility

When you have an exceptional piece of content that you believe could attract significant engagement, using a paid social media campaign is a strategic way to guarantee it receives the attention it deserves. Paid campaigns can prominently feature this content, ensuring they stand out in a crowded social feed. This is especially effective for high-value content such as in-depth case studies, engaging webinars, or other promotions that are a priority for your brand. By strategically investing in paid promotions for your most valuable content, you can effectively expand your reach, attract new followers, and re-engage former fans, ultimately contributing to the growth and success of your brand.

Audience Data

The power of a paid campaign lies in its ability to target specific audience segments who are most likely to be interested in your content. For instance, if you have a detailed case study, you can target professionals in the relevant industry, or for a webinar, you can reach out to individuals who have shown interest in similar topics. If you are selling pet products, you have the ability to target specific audience groups like pet owners or pet enthusiasts, and each platform will vary in the depth of targeting options, depending on the data available on the platform and the local privacy laws in the respective jurisdiction. While sharing our data and receiving specific, targeted messages may be uncomfortable, this approach significantly increases the likelihood of creating engagement or transactions for social media advertisers.

Sales Tracking

Content Visibility

Audience Data

Combining Paid & Organic Social Media

Choosing between an organic or paid social media strategy is a difficult choice, but a hybrid approach offers the best of both worlds, maximizing content reach while maintaining budget efficiency. Defining and taking action on the synergy between paid and organic social media strategies is an effective route to maximizing their effectiveness. Start by identifying your most engaging content. For instance, a post that has gone viral or has high sales conversion rates is an ideal candidate for a paid social media campaign. By analyzing your social media analytics, you can determine which aspects of your content - like imagery, calls-to-action, and copy - are most effective. Metrics such as clicks and new followers are great indicators of what content resonates best with your audience. These insights can then be used to create new and more impactful content for paid social media, ensuring that your advertising efforts are aligned with your most successful organic content.

Understanding your social media analytics is crucial for integrating paid and organic strategies. Use audience data to inform when to schedule your ad campaigns, using tools like Facebook’s ad scheduling to optimize your ad spend with controlled timing. Investing in organic social content provides valuable insights into your audience demographics, which can be enhanced with third-party tools or evaluated manually as part of your brand's marketing analytics. This knowledge is invaluable when creating targeted ad campaigns by defining your audience and providing insights which will inform your ad content. Additionally, retargeting on platforms like Facebook can be highly effective, allowing you to reach people who have previously interacted with your content or are already in your CRM. This strategy is increasingly important as social media evolves into a pay-to-play channel, with algorithm changes giving preference to paid content and reducing organic reach.