How do you get social media clicks? The answer is – there’s no one answer. Both paid and organic social media strategies have their advantages. So, let’s look at what paid vs. organic marketing have to offer and how to strike the balance you need. 

What Is Organic Marketing?

Organic social media strategies rely on the content itself to drive engagement. Like with all things we label organic, however, the content doesn’t work alone. Organic marketing relies on a lot of behind-the-scenes activity. You need to understand keywords and hashtags and how people and social media algorithms use them. You have to build a robust presence, with frequent and consistent posting. 

With organic strategies, you also have to balance branding and advertising with substantive and entertaining posts. People will react to pretty pictures. They will share witty saying and funny stories. They’re not, however, going to share your advertisement. 

What is Paid Marketing?

Paid social media marketing is exactly what it says on the tin – you’re paying to promote posts and ads on social media platforms. Promoted posts get more visibility because the platform pushes them into people’s feeds, usually based on what they’re currently browsing, their interests, and what they search for. 

Money isn’t the only thing that matters with paid strategies, however. While money and audience selections do a lot behind the scenes, if the stage isn’t set, the show won’t attract people. Ads still require engaging content, or people won’t click. 

How to Find the Balance

The balance you need between paid and organic social media marketing requires understanding a few factors:

1. What is your brand and industry?
2. What is your target audience, and what are their social media habits?
3. How much time and money do you have to devote to your marketing?
4. What are your goals?

Questions 1 and 2 are basic 101 of all marketing strategies and will determine what you share more than how you share it, so while they’re important, we’ve talked about them lots before and won’t get into them here. 

Question 3 is important, but determined most of all by Question 4, so let’s look at that first. 

What Are Your Goals?

Knowing what you want to achieve in your social media marketing is the most important thing in determining if you should focus on a paid or organic strategy. If your goal is brand-building and/or social media engagement itself (building followers for example), then focusing on an organic strategy and using paid posts to support your organic (ie, non-ad) posts is best. 

If your goal is to get leads and conversions (e-commerce clicks, leads into your sales funnel), then a paid strategy with a lighter organic base to support your ads and build trust is the way to go. 

Note that in both of these goals, we’re not using an either/or approach. For follower growth, brand building, and social media engagement, an organic approach is best because you will build a lasting audience. However, using paid advertising to promote will get your posts out there, above the din of other similar content, helping people find you. 

For sales and lead generation, paid advertising will appeal to people who want to get into a sales funnel and want to do commerce because they’re either actively looking for your kind of services or passively looking to spend money. However, a brand that only has ads on its social media page will feel – fake, inorganic, and possibly even dishonest. Having some organic posts on your page that demonstrate your community involvement will build trust and help people commit to clicking through on the ad. 

Okay, Question 3 Doesn’t Matter As Much As You Think

Organic social media is considered to be more cost-effective (just ask Google), but that’s not true. Or, I should say, it’s true only to a degree.

The cost of organic social media marketing is usually (but not always) a hidden cost. For businesses that handle their marketing in-house, it’s usually hidden in the wages and salaries of the people in the office who manage those things, but they’re not non-existent. Just as I wouldn’t be able to write this article if I was preparing social media posts and engaging my brand on other posts and pages, likewise, the employees you have working on organic social media are doing so at the expense of other work they have to do – doing the office shuffle. 

If you do decide to hire someone to handle your organic social media, you can pay less than what you would spend on ads. You’re probably spending what you intend to spend on ads. If you’re able to afford someone who will charge you a few hundred for managing your social media, you’re probably not affording much more than that in ads. If you’re willing to spend thousands on an ad budget, your company is probably at a level where you need to spend thousands on someone to manage your organic social media as well. 

Question 3 above helps you budget your organic and paid social media, but it shouldn’t actually determine what you choose to do – because both require time and money investment. Instead, let your goals and the advantages of each strategy help you make the decision.

Are You Building a Social Media Strategy?

Media Components can help you build and market your brand. Whether you’re an entrepreneur starting out, a small business, or a large company, we have digital marketing solutions we can tailor to your needs. Contact us today.