What is the difference between “Paid” and “Organic” when it comes to Social Media Marketing?
Paid social media content is usually considered an advertisement and costs money to post, while organic social media is free to share on the platform.
However, the differences between Paid and Organic Social Media do not stop there!
They have different goals, require different strategies, reach different people and often have very different outcomes.
Organic Social Media
When deciding what to post, you should always consider the question: Who do I want this message to reach?
If the answer to that is, “my existing customers or audience” then organic social is the way to go.
Best Practices for Organic Social:
Your organic social should focus on telling your brand story and building relationships with your audience.
Minimize the amount of hard-selling your organic posts do, and instead showcase who you are as a brand and your personality.
Your social media profiles are often the first stop on a customer journey, and it’s important to make a good first impression.
According to Animoto’s recent consumer insights, 58% of consumers visit a brand’s social media pages before visiting their website. This is an 81% increase over last year.
Paid Social Media
Understanding paid social media advertising can be hard.
There are lots of questions that don’t always have solid answers, like:
- Why should I invest in social media ads?
- How much should I invest in those ads?
- How do I know if my ads are successful?
- Where should I advertise and who should I advertise to?
Your ad strategy will depend on your industry, location and starting point, so lots of these questions can only be answered by social media testing.
According to Hootsuite’s Digital 2020 report, Facebook ads reach 1.95 billion of the platform’s 2.5 billion monthly users.
This is 32% of the world’s population (around 1.21 billion of those people are between the ages of 13 and 34)
So paid advertising can guarantee your message reaches people, but there isn’t a guarantee that it will convert into profits for your business.
Best Practices for Paid Social:
Always be on the lookout for industry changes and updates.
If you chose to do your advertising in-house, that means:
- Subscribing to newsletters;
- Joining the right Facebook groups; and
- Researching industry news when needed.
Or, hiring someone you trust to stay on top of those things for you.
Targeting! Finding and targeting the right audience is more than just based on location.
This means determining the appropriate size audience for a campaign, deciding on keywords and establishing demographics.
Always be testing.
What works for your audience one month could change by the next, and depending on the season, certain messaging can stop converting.
Some things to be testing with your audience include:
- Type of Ad (Awareness, Traffic or Conversions, etc)
- Long-form or Short-form text
- The ratio of text on the visuals
- Type of headline (Snappy headlines vs informative)
You can find a grove that performs best for your audience, but don’t get too set in your ways, as things can change in a blink of an eye!
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There are even more things to consider, like boosting a post versus using the Facebook Ads Manager, or how big your daily budget should be.
And for organic, how are you supposed to share curated content without promoting a competitor?
All these things and more should be considered when deciding if your message is best suited for Organic or Paid social media.
The most successful marketing utilizes both! Organic and paid social media practices are crucial to generating leads or sales in any industry.
Schedule a free consultation call with us and find the optimal way to combine the two for a successful marketing strategy.