Why Organic Social and Paid Social Are Better Together

Organic and paid social media strategies work together to build brand awareness, engage your audience, and drive conversions. They both have pros and cons, but often they work better together—here’s why and how.

More than 5 billion people around the world use social media, accounting for an eyebrow-raising 93% of all internet users.

From Snapchat to Pinterest, social media is an integral part of many people’s daily lives. No matter who you’re trying to reach, chances are that you can find them on social media.

To maximize your reach and success, you need both organic and paid social media strategies. We’ll show you why integrating both can significantly boost your marketing efforts and how to leverage each for the best results effectively.

Paid vs. organic social media: What’s the difference?

Social media traffic comes in two forms: paid and organic. Unlike organic social, paid social media is, well, paid.

• Paid social media: This includes advertisements or sponsored posts that you pay to distribute to your target audience. This is not only for ads but also for things like influencer marketing.
• Organic social media: This consists of standard posts or photos shared with your followers without any monetary investment. It can include posts from your brand as well as your audience, known as user-generated content.

In the last few years, organic reach has become increasingly difficult–but far from impossible–for brands.

Much like the difference between PPC and SEO, the organic channel takes more time but can deliver greater long-term yields.

What is organic social media?

When you hear the term “organic” in digital marketing, remember to remember “free.”

Organic social media refers to social content shared for free, spreading the word about your brand without any monetary investment on your part.

Well, that’s not entirely true. While you don’t have to pay to advertise or reach more people, you still have to create the content you want to share.

This takes your social media team’s time (and therefore costs your brand money). Unfortunately, in marketing, there really is no such thing as a completely free lunch.

When you create a post on LinkedIn, for example, your audience might like or share it with their followers. The post spreads on its own, and you don’t have to spend a dime on advertising it.

However, as Nicole Goodnough, senior paid social media manager at HawkSEM, points out, “Social algorithms will also show suggested content based on user behavior, not just reliant on followers sharing content.

She adds that, after TikTok blew up with their For You Page (FYP) by knowing what users wanted before they knew they wanted it, other platforms began to beef up their AI to keep up.

Organic social media: pros

The benefits of organic social media

Affordability: Organic content may cost you some time and effort, but it doesn’t add extra spend to your marketing budget, which can be a huge advantage for small businesses. An organic social media strategy is one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies you can implement.

Community building: Organic posts are naturally more conversational and engaging than ads, so you have a great opportunity to interact with your audience, maintain your company’s reputation, and build trust and relationships with current and future customers.

Organic social media: cons

Limited exposure: Organic content is first shared only with your followers on social media platforms, leaving it up to your audience to help spread the word to new potential customers.

Depends on outside elements: As Goodnough explains, “Organic social exposure is dependent upon a lot of outside elements, too: viral content that day/week, worldwide events and news, etc.” The algorithm can help get your content in the right place, but at the end of the day, you’re at the mercy of the rest of the world.

Time-consuming: Creating high-quality content to increase your organic reach can take quite an effort. Plus, the more social accounts you have, the more time you’ll need to spend creating, monitoring, and analyzing your content.

Pro tip: Don’t forget about user-generated content (UGC). The more you engage with your audience and encourage positive conversations, the more open your followers will be to sharing their own content that you can share to your brand’s profile. 

What is paid social media?

Paid social media refers to advertisements or sponsored posts that a company pays to distribute to its target audience. This type of social media marketing includes:

• Social media advertising: Paid placements that appear in users’ feeds or stories.
• Sponsored posts: Content that brands pay to promote, ensuring it reaches a broader audience.
• Boosted posts: Regular posts that are given a paid boost to increase their visibility.
• Influencer marketing: Collaborations with influencers who promote your brand to their followers for a fee.

This increase in the difficulty of organic in recent years has caused many brands to focus more on their paid social.

In 2024, social media ad spending is set to reach a whopping $247 billion, up more than 14% year-over-year. However, in our opinion, it’s still worth most brands’ time and resources to invest in both.

Paid social media: pros

Greater chance of conversions: Since paid social posts are guaranteed to get to your target audience (unlike organic content, which isn’t nearly as targeted), viewers are more likely to convert into paying customers.

Retargeting: Paid social media campaigns can be wildly effective in your retargeting efforts. You can customize your ads to appeal to leads who haven’t yet converted, helping you gain those precious sales.

It’s easy to track: Paid social media platforms provide detailed analytics and performance metrics, making it easy to monitor the success of your campaigns and adjust strategies in real time for optimal results.

Paid social media: cons

Competition: No matter which social networks you’re advertising on, there’s bound to be plenty of competition. The demand for visibility is high, and constantly trying to outbid your competitors can get expensive fast.

Cost: As we just touched on, the costs of paid social can add up quickly if you’re not careful. A small business or one in a highly competitive industry with a limited marketing budget may be unable to justify the ad spend it takes to run a viable campaign.

For example, according to Wordstream, the education industry has an average cost per acquisition (CPA) on Facebook of $7.85. Therefore, targeting Facebook and Instagram young audiences may be a smart investment.

However, it gets pricier for other sectors. For example, the average CPA on Facebook is $43.84 for auto, $44.66 for home improvement, and $55.21 for technology services.

When to opt for organic social media, paid social media, or both

Knowing when to use organic social media, paid social media marketing, or a combination of both depends on various factors, such as your business goals, target audience, budget, and available resources.

Here are some general guidelines to help you decide:

Use organic social media when:

Building brand awareness

Organic social media is an excellent tool for building brand awareness and establishing a presence on social media platforms.

By consistently sharing high-quality content that resonates with your target audience, you can create a loyal following that increases your brand’s visibility and reach.

Engaging with your audience

Organic efforts provide an opportunity to engage with your audience on a personal level.

You can build authentic relationships with your followers by responding to comments and messages, participating in online conversations related to your industry, and sharing user-generated content.

Having limited budget

Organic social media can be a cost-effective way to promote your brand and reach a wider audience without requiring a significant budget.

It’s perfect for small businesses or startups looking to build their online presence.

Use paid social media when:

Promoting products or services

Paid social media is a powerful tool for promoting products or services directly to your target audience. By creating highly targeted ads, you can reach people who are most likely to be interested in what you have to offer, increasing the chances of conversions and sales.

Scaling quickly

If you need to scale your marketing efforts rapidly, paid social media allows you to reach a larger audience quickly and effectively. It’s ideal for launching new products, running time-sensitive campaigns, or entering new markets.

Maximizing ROI

Paid social media provides detailed analytics on your ads’ performance, allowing you to optimize your campaigns and maximize your return on investment (ROI). With precise tracking and targeting capabilities, you can ensure your ad spend is driving meaningful results.

Use both organic and paid social media when

Maximizing reach

Combining organic and paid social media helps you reach a wider audience than you would with either strategy alone. Organic social media builds a loyal following, while paid social media helps you reach new audiences and increase conversions. This integrated approach ensures that your content gets the broadest possible exposure.

Creating a comprehensive hybrid strategy
Using both organic and paid social media allows you to create a comprehensive social media strategy that addresses all aspects of your marketing goals, from brand awareness to lead generation and sales.

By leveraging the strengths of both approaches, you can ensure a balanced and effective social media presence.

Maintaining consistency

Consistency is key in social media marketing. Using organic and paid strategies ensures your brand message is consistently delivered across different touchpoints. This consistency helps reinforce your brand identity and keeps your audience engaged.

How to make organic social media and paid social media work together

In the debate between organic vs paid social media, both strategies have a place in your overall social media marketing efforts. The key is balancing them.

1. Start with your goals

Before you can determine how to best use organic and paid social strategies, take some time to think about your business goals.

If you’re focused on increasing brand awareness, for instance, you may want to lean into organic social media marketing for a while. Your efforts will be all about gaining new followers and more engagement.

If your goal is to increase conversions or sales, paid posts may take precedence since ads will target those more likely to convert.

Pro tip: Remember to use SMART Goals here: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Based. This formula can help you produce actionable goals to more easily direct your efforts, while vague goals can leave you scratching your head about where to begin.

2. Learn more about your audience

Your overall target audience might be well-defined, but your followers on different social media accounts might not always fall into those neat boxes.

For example, you may know that your company appeals mainly to customers in their teens and 20s. However, your followers on TikTok will be most interested in short-form video content, while the same may not be true for your X (formerly Twitter) followers.

Separate your overall audience based on the platform, then learn more about the demographics that are present in that particular space.

Having these individual segments of your audience can make it easier to produce effective organic content and ensure your paid ads get you the highest return on investment (ROI) possible.

3. Work with the algorithms

Each social media platform has its own unique algorithm to determine what content gets shared with certain users and when.

To make the most of your marketing efforts, it’s crucial to understand how each network’s algorithm handles content.

Here is a surface-level breakdown of what each algorithm is looking for:

• Facebook: The algorithm prioritizes content that sparks meaningful interactions. Posts from friends and family are given more weight, along with content that generates comments, shares, and reactions. To work with this, you can create engaging content that encourages conversations and interactions to increase visibility.
• Instagram: Relationships and engagement are key. The algorithm favors posts from accounts that users interact with frequently, including likes, comments, and direct messages. On Instagram, you should focus on fostering strong engagement by interacting with your audience regularly and using interactive features like stories, polls, and live videos.
• X (formerly known as Twitter): Recency and relevance are crucial. X’s algorithm highlights recent tweets that are relevant to the user based on their interactions, interests, and what’s trending. Post frequently and engage with trending topics to stay relevant in your followers’ feeds.
• LinkedIn: The algorithm prioritizes content quality and professional relevance. It favors posts that drive conversations and professional engagement, particularly those with high-quality visuals and in-depth articles. Share valuable, well-crafted content that provides professional insights and encourages discussion.
• TikTok: The For You Page (FYP) algorithm focuses on user behavior and content engagement. It shows users videos based on their interactions, watch time and engagement levels. Create compelling, engaging short videos encouraging users to watch until the end and interact with your content.
• YouTube: Watch time and viewer retention are key. The algorithm favors videos that keep users watching longer and generate high engagement rates. Produce high-quality, engaging videos that keep viewers watching and interacting through likes, comments, and shares.

4. Leverage User-Generated Content (UGC)

Encourage your followers to create and share their own content related to your brand. You can do this both through paid and organic channels.

For organic, you could create branded hashtags and run contests or challenges to motivate users to generate and share content. Highlight and share the best user-generated content on your brand’s profile to foster a sense of community.

For a paid campaign, you could promote a competition you are running with ads or give incentives, such as discount codes, to users who refer you to USC.

UGC can be a powerful tool to amplify your reach and engagement. This is particularly true for ecommerce businesses.

When users share their experiences, reviews, or testimonials, it adds authenticity and trust to your brand. You can then boost this content with paid ads to reach a wider audience.

5. Integrate cross-promotion strategies

Cross-promote your organic and paid content to maximize reach and engagement. Use your organic posts to build awareness and engagement, then use paid ads to amplify the most successful organic content.

This synergy can help you reach a larger audience and reinforce your message across different touchpoints.

Pro tip: Share snippets of your paid content organically to tease and generate interest, and use paid ads to boost your best-performing organic posts for broader visibility.

Our top 3 best practices for social media marketing

Your social media efforts are sure to be different depending on the type of content and the platform you’re using. Still, some best practices can be applied to any business’s overall social media strategy.

1. Be genuine

Regardless of whether you’re creating paid content or organic content, audiences can see right through you when you’re not being genuine.

One of the main benefits of organic social is its inherent engagement potential. To make the most of that potential, you have to approach your audience in a relatable way. Remember: organic social is meant to inform or entertain, not strictly to pitch your business.

It’s still important to be sincere when you use paid social media. Audiences can tell when you’re simply trying to get a sale. But when you come from a place of authenticity, new customers will feel valued and connected to your business.

2. Experiment with formats

Your social media posts likely include photos and videos, infographics, and case studies. To integrate paid and organic social efforts, experiment with different formats to see what gets the most traction.

For example, more visual content is infinitely sharable, which is why infographics and short videos do so well organically. Text-based content, on the other hand, may be better suited for paid campaigns.

3. Conduct A/B testing

A/B testing your social media content, whether paid or organic, can provide valuable insights for your business.

When you test content that’s slightly varied, you can easily see which version suits your audience best. You can learn more about your audience’s preferences on each social media platform you use, and you can more easily determine the types of content that are worth investing in.

Consider A/B testing for social media elements like:

• Post length
• Tone of voice
• Use of pictures or videos
• Post/ad format
• Hashtags
• Calls to action (CTA)

Remember to keep an eye on your marketing campaigns and track your performance metrics to determine which version of your content is more successful.

More insight from our social media experts

At our agency, we have years of experience in the more traditional digital marketing channels. But we’re also working to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to the newer avenues—and that includes social media.

“While paid social allows you to place brand messaging in front of key audiences, organic social is also a key component of your overall social media strategy,” says Magnolia Deuell, associate director of social media at HawkSEM.

“Organic social allows brands to engage authentically with their core audience — usually, loyal customers — to deepen relationships and increase CLV [or customer lifetime value].”

She adds that these are the types of audiences that supplement word-of-mouth advertising. Having a solid content strategy and high engagement scores are not only important to your core audience, but also to prospects who may see an ad and visit your profile.

“If your business page is lacking or your competitors have a larger, more engaged following, a prospect may have reason to search elsewhere for a product or service,” Deuell explains.

“And, as social media evolves its user experience to include more search functionality, social SEO is crucial to being discovered in search results.”

The takeaway

Content marketing (and digital marketing in general) is a complex world, and your social media marketing strategy is just one facet. Balancing your paid and organic strategy may take some trial and error, but it’s more than worth the effort.

Social media is changing every day. Working with an expert in social media management can help you make the most of your efforts and quickly adapt to the ever-shifting market.

HawkSEM can help you evaluate your paid and organic social strategies and improve your performance thanks to our stellar team of experts and our proprietary ConversionIQ technology.

HawkSEM offers organic social consulting that can seamlessly fill the gaps within a brand’s social media strategy.

From social SEO to a relevant and consistent content strategy, we are here to be an extension of your brand team and improve your social media presence across the board.

Contact us to learn more about how we can help move your business forward.

This article has been updated and was originally published in July 2023.