Organic vs. Paid Social Media Strategy

So many business owners think that investing in their social media means lots of ADs, which means lots of money. I am going to tell you right now, that is 100% not the case. Five or six years ago this may have been the case, but honestly you can get better growth and better ROI if you focused completely on a organic social media strategy. Social media is changing constantly and the users are changing their way of buying and being influenced is constantly changing.

What is organic social media?

Organic social media is simply free content that all users share with each other. This content is posted regularly without boosting or being sponsored.

When going the organic route requires you to be more engaging on social media. This means liking, commenting, and sharing content consistently.

If your brand is posting organically you can expect to see that a percentage of your followers will see it, your followers’ followers (if people choose to share your content), and people following any hashtags you use.

Sounds simple doesn’t it? Well it pretty much is. The reason why most brands are implementing organic social media to their strategies is because it is the absolute best way to nurture a connection with your audience at scale.

The benefits of organic social media

It’s Free

The biggest and most glorious benefits of organic social media is that its completely free, that is if you choose to manage your social media platforms yourself.

It builds trust

Unlike paid campaigns, which usually are looking for viewers to complete some sort of ask, organic social media don’t necessarily drive sales. Instead, this approach is heavily focusing on brand building, audience entertainment, and general updates. Think about it this way, no one wants to see promotional content on their social media allllllllll the time. No one. I always people people won’t trust a brand that 1. never shows their face and 2. is always and only promoting their products/service.

Long-term sustainability

Because of the fact that it is free, organic social media is sustainable long-term. You don’t necessarily need a whole production team but you do need someone, if not yourself, to be consistent with organic social media in order for it to work how it is supposed to.

What is paid social media?

Paid social media is all things paid advertising, boosted posts, and the like in hopes of reaching a wider audience. Can be compared to a digital billboard on the digital highway.

Paid social media allows businesses to increase visibility, drive traffic, generate leads by investing in targeted advertising strategies on social media platforms.

A business will go this route to raise brand awareness and attract new followers, promote their newest product or service, and drive conversions.

The benefits of paid social media

It allows advanced targeting

When running ads on platforms like Facebook and Instagram you’re able to set specific goals and really give specific details on the types of people you are wanting to target. Now, I agree and disagree with this benefit. Sometimes and for some people running an add works for them, they see actual interest from the right people. Other times, I see it not work at all and never hit the mark. For me, it is too much money invested into something that claims it will do what it’s supposed to do only for it to fall short almost every single time.

Easy to track

You can easily track all of the information from a paid ad or boosted post in any of the social media platforms where you choose to run said paid ad.

There are also third-party tools and tracker that you can subscribe to and see more in depth data and you can see everything on a single dashboard. Some of these tools also offer detailed reporting features that can tell you how to improve the paid ads.

Hybrid strategy (paid and organic)

The best thing to do is utilize a hybrid strategy so that you can get all of the benefits of social media marketing and the social media platforms. This is of course, if you have a decent budget to do so.

You should neglect the organic aspect (being engaging and SOCIAL on social media - the apps hate that and will not push your content out there) and you shouldn’t completely turn off the idea of running an idea every once in a while on your platforms.

Social media is definitely a trial and error type of marketing and it looks different for every single brand even if there are 2 brands in the same industry or field, they may have 2 very different strategies and both are working greta for each of them.

How can 77 Socials help with organic social media growth?

I am an expert in organic social media growth. I work with business owners who want to invest in their social media but can’t necessarily afford to spend hundreds or thousands on paid ads. Business owners will hire a freelancer like myself that creates strong content of value to their target audience, utilizes hashtags, and spending time on community engagement.

This is how I am able to stay affordable for my clients, I take over all thing organic social media management and you can sit back and watch your online audience grow.

If this sounds like you and something you think you may need, send me an email and we can set up a time for a call.