Organic vs. Paid – Which is best?

There are benefits to both organic and paid social media which is why businesses are often left feeling confused about which approach to take when planning an effective marketing campaign. Businesses are often misled by companies who maintain that paid ads are the only way forward or that organic social media alone is enough. This blog will help to identify what exactly each approach consists of and which approach is the best to go for!

Organic

Organic refers to any social media content which is not ‘boosted’ with money. This can be anything from posting from your Facebook business account with some narrative and an attached picture to commenting on another company’s post on LinkedIn. Sharing, liking, retweeting and liking other profiles all fall under organic social media. Organic posts are great for creating brand awareness. The biggest benefit of organic social media is that no matter how much content you post or time you spend interacting with other profiles it will not come at an additional cost.

Paid

Paid media consists of any online marketing which involves a paid placement. This could be boosted posts, ads which are optimized for clicks, lead generation forms, video ads or a PPC campaign. PPC, or pay-per-click, is a form of internet marketing in which advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. The benefit of paid media is that your desired audience can be targeted by a variety of demographic factors including age, gender and location.

Which works best?

Every company is different and what works for one company will not work for another, however, the best social media strategy will consist of a combination of organic and paid posts. Regardless of whether you are going to be using paid ads alongside your campaign, you should always have a solid organic social media marketing campaign planned out. This may consist of sharing upcoming events, growing your follower count through competitions, increasing brand awareness through posting regularly and improving your company’s reputation through responding to inboxes, customer reviews and comments. The paid ads should come as a supplementary to the organic social media.

At Mosaic, we manage various social media accounts, from a vehicle rental company in Warrington to financial consultancy based in Florida.

If you want to increase your company’s brand awareness and gain more of a digital presence but need help managing the relevant social media accounts then get in touch.