Have you been weighing the options between organic and paid social media but not understanding the difference? Organic social media is content curated to reach followers through content shared at no promotional cost. Paid social media content is promoted at a cost to reach an audience beyond your followers. Let’s explore the advantages and challenges of organic and paid social media to learn how both can help discover new methods in improving your marketing strategy.
Organic Social Media
Organic social media refers to the content such as posts, stories, videos, photos, etc., that are shared throughout a feed to followers without using paid social advertising. You can create content to nurture your existing customers, and if done correctly, a well-maintained and active social media account can be an effective platform to reach potential customers. This is because more and more potential customers are looking to social media as a new form of search engine.
Advantages
Organic social media is a long-term and cost-effective solution to building brand awareness. Many businesses and regular people use organic social media to establish their personality, build relationships, share information, entertain, educate, inspire, promote, start conversations, ask questions, and more. Organic social media is a great solution for companies looking to connect with their audiences, establish their brand, and build their reputation.
Here are a few examples of organic social media:
For Results Repeat, this piece of content was created to educate business owners on the importance of asking questions when choosing an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Company. To learn more about the 5 Must-Ask Questions to Help You Choose an SEO Company we shared a free resource linking to a blog post.
This content post was shared to focus on the team and the company’s appreciation through ‘National Employee Appreciation Day’ for current followers, potential clients, or job seekers to explore who we are as a company.
Challenges
One of the top challenges of organic social media is growing your channel, which takes time through a variety of strategic engagement efforts. You cannot make a social media account and expect followers to grow exponentially overnight. Other challenges to navigate when preparing to jump into organic social media may be defining a social media strategy, identifying the right social platform to use, and improving organic reach. Remember, challenges are learning opportunities. Once you identify your unique business opportunities of using organic social media, taking the necessary steps to optimize your social media strategy is worth the challenges that may arise.
Paid Social Media
Paid social media is a form of paid advertising that targets specific social media platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Youtube, etc. Each social media platform provides unique benefits to leverage your paid social media campaign.
Advantages
Paid social media helps enhance brand visibility to reach your goals. Some goals include: increase website traffic, brand awareness, engagement, conversion, app installs, video views, lead generation, and more depending on the campaign, audience, and ad format you are using.
Challenges
Paid social media provides an excellent opportunity for visibility and conversion, but there are many
challenges to conquer before launching a successful paid social media campaign. Common paid social media challenges include adjusting audience targeting for optimal results, creating the right creative concept for visual attraction, increasing cost and budget, and decreasing results. Reviewing your paid social media campaigns daily helps you measure, monitor, and adjust your strategy to ensure a higher performance rate.
Integrate Both Into Your Social Media Strategy
It is imperative to understand that organic and paid social media benefits your business. Here are some key tips on how you can integrate organic and paid social media into your social media strategy.
Tip #1: Boost Your Top-Performing Organic Content
Do you see that one or two of your organic posts has performed really well? You can expand your reach by promoting your post as low as $1 a day.
Tip #2: A/B Test Organic Content
A/B testing is also known for split testing. You can A/B testing images, videos, headlines, audiences, ad format, and much more. A/B testing helps you define and adjust your social media strategy to track your efforts.
Tip #3: Connect With Organic Audience With Remarketing Ads
Reconnect with your audience and prospects with remarketing ads to remind them of your business.
Organic and paid social media provides many advantages and challenges to your business. Discover more ways to integrate your social media strategy and find solutions to your challenges in organic and paid social media. Contact the digital marketing experts at Results Repeat and see how organic and paid social media can work for your business!
