You may have heard the terms paid and organic social and wondered “what exactly is the difference?” The discrepancy is in the name – paid social is boosted by a structured budget, whereas organic posts are your run-of-the-mill tweets, statuses, or Instagram snaps, just posted by a business page rather than all those “friends” you added in 2011 and haven’t spoken to since.
Organic posts will appear on a social media user’s newsfeed if they follow your business, or if a mutual follower interacts with your posts. When users share and comment on your posts, this increases organic engagement and helps you gain organic followers by expanding your reach to their friends and followers.
Paid posts can appear on anyone’s newsfeed, and that’s where your money goes. You can choose who the posts target by specifically selecting certain audiences, locations, genders, and even interests.
Now that we’ve got the basic definition covered, let’s get into what each type of social post can achieve!
Why Should I Post Organically?
When clients ask us if they should bother with organic, we always stress its importance. Whilst organic social media does take a little more TLC than paid, the benefits are definitely worth it. For starters, 58% of consumers check out a brand’s social media channel before purchasing!
Organic social media allows you to keep interacting with your current customers. Maintaining a relationship with organic customers really makes your brand look authentic and increases brand loyalty. With organic social media, you can gain insight into which products customers show an interest in, key analytics about your customer base, as well as their demographics.
Along with gaining the mentioned advantages, by having a strong organic social media strategy, you can also expect to see some serious outcomes, such as:
- Educate potential customers on your product
- Keep brand top-of-mind
- Gain followers and increase your audience reach
- Build customer loyalty through social proof
Monitoring your organic social media can help you tweak your strategy to make sure you are constantly achieving the most, along with being on route to reach those all-important KPI’s
Why Should I Use Paid Social Media?
Getting started with paid social media can seem a little daunting but having a budget put aside for paid social is, in our opinion, a great investment! As with organic posts, paid social strategies can massively help boost your followers, engagement, and brand awareness. Paid posts can help you reach a brand new, untapped audience by specially targeting your ads to different audiences you want to reach who may not already follow you. Reaching these audiences can help turn them into new followers and customers. A report in 2019 showed 24% of consumers made a purchase after seeing a paid social ad.
Reaching into a new audience isn’t the only great outcome of investing in paid social, you can also:
- Target specific customer groups further down the conversion funnel
- Gain website conversions & revenue
- Enhance credibility and engagement
What Social Media Platforms Should I Use Organic & Paid Social Media On?
Paid and organic strategies can be used on all platforms! However, we recommend that whatever platform you post organically on, why not further your expectations by adding a small budget? On the likes of Facebook and Instagram, you can create paid social adverts, whereas the rest of the platforms will allow you to pay to boost organic posts to gain more engagement.
Want to know how our social media advertising services can improve your marketing funnel? Or do you just want a pro to manage your organic social media? Contact Onefeed today on 0800 130 3140 or email hello@onefeed.co.uk to find out how we can help make your business social media savvy with a FREE audit.
