Organic vs. Paid Social Media

Social media marketers are often asked about the pros and cons of organic vs paid social. Understanding what each of those terms mean, as well as the value each brings to a startup, can help a founder elevate their marketing strategy above the competition.

Organic Social Media

Organic social media is often thought of as “free socialmedia.” It is defined by its contrast to paid advertising on the social mediaplatforms. However, in reality organic social is much deeper than just being“not paid.” Organic social focuses on engagement and interaction within eachsocial media platform as opposed to a specific call to action -- more focus onlikes and shares, less on link clicks and sign-ups. Its aim is to build acommunity of people interested in your product/brand/business while adding tothat community over time. Tactics like hashtags can be used to help reach usersoutside of the account’s followers, but the impact is incremental when viewedat a macro level. Organic social media can be at the mercy of the socialplatforms’ algorithms. Only a small percentage of your followers will see eachpost in their feeds, making it more impactful to mix with…

Paid Social Media

Paid social media often involves “boosting” your organiccontent to a wider audience or running social advertisements. Social ads canappear in a user’s feed, but do not always appear on the company’s feed ortimeline. These ads that are only seen by select targeted users, are commonlyreferred to as “dark posts.” A main benefit of paid social media is to amplifyreach that is stifled by the platforms’ algorithms. Brands can target a certainsegment of their audience using key words or interests. KPM such as clicks andconversions can be added to paid social ads. Social media is a competitiveworld and paid social is no exception. Marketers must optimize their content tomake it stand out, as well as continually test the backend targetingparameters. Paid social is often viewed as less authentic than organic and canseem “advertisey” compared to organic. In reality, the solution for brands isto…

Combine an Organic and Paid Social Strategy

It may sound contradictory, but organic and paid socialmedia are better when complimenting one another than alone. Organic socialmedia has limited impact if the reach of the account is low. At the same token,paid social media will not maximize its potential if there is no consistentorganic presence or community of followers. A user seeing a paid social add whoclicks on the account will expect to see a robust presence of similar poststhat showcase what the brand/company/product is all about.

What is Right for You

Our suggested strategy at Hyperspace Ventures is toimplement a healthy mix of organic and paid social. For more mature brandaccounts, with established audiences, the skew would lean more heavily towardsorganic than paid. For newer accounts, starting from scratch, paid social willbe used to build up and grow an initial user base, targeting individuals whowould likely have interest in the product or company. As that audience grows,the impact of organic social will increase, and the complimentary cyclecontinues.

It’s important to remember that social media is not a silverbullet for your company’s marketing needs. Over the last two decades, socialmedia has become a mature industry that a majority of businesses realize theyneed to be involved in in some way. The right attitude towards social media isone of patient optimism. You will get more out when you put more resources in.If you’re interested in learning more about Hyperspace Ventures’ social mediaofferings, email us at hello@hyperspaceventures.comor fill out this form.