There will forever be a never-ending debate among digital marketers about paid social media versus organic social media plans. While many digital marketing leaders of some of the more renowned companies would typically opt for a hybrid social media model, which allows a significant amount of (bulk!) organic social media marketing that is teamed with a certain amount of paid social efforts, it may not always be that straightforward for smaller teams – or those undergoing advertising as well as marketing budget cuts – to have a huge amount of paid-for social media campaigns, if any at all.
Besides the very pertinent fact that organic social media strategies can very definitely boost a brand’s presence (and followers) – while also offering benefits such as marketing cost-efficiencies as well as authenticity – the fact remains that any brand, big or small, is able to create a wholesome online image with a robust organic social media strategy even minus having a paid social media plan in place.
What Is Organic Social Media?
The term ‘organic social media’ is the usage of the free services and tools which each social media platform provides to its users. This includes posting the following for your audience:
- Status updates,
- Links, as well as
- Images with captions.
The aim of organic social media is to establish a community of loyal followers and customers through posting content that is relevant and interacting with those people who interact with your brand. If you would like to show customers your true values and culture, while – in addition to learning about the values of your customers – organic social media marketing is the best way to do so.
What Is Paid Social?
Paid social, on the other hand, is identified as paying for social media platforms to show ads or sponsored messages to users of the social network according to user profiles and features, with each one of these ads or sponsored messages incurring a cost, depending on the type of ad served. For instance, pay-per-click (PPC) ads incur a cost each time your ad is clicked by a user.