Organic & Paid Marketing: How To Align Your Strategy
In today's dynamic social media landscape, businesses often have to ask themselves- Organic or Paid media? According to Search Engine Journal, it takes approximately seven interactions with a brand before a consumer makes a purchasing decision. Furthermore, 68% of consumers have made purchases through social media. These statistics emphasise the importance of having a well-rounded social media strategy that combines both organic and paid elements.
Creating effective social media strategies can be an intimidating task, whether you're new or looking to refresh your brand's online presence. In this guide, we will delve into the difference between organic and paid social media and offer insights into crafting a strategy that seamlessly integrates both.
Understanding the Key Differences Between Organic and Paid Social Media
While the temptation to create the same content for both organic and paid social media may be strong, it's crucial to recognize the unique characteristics, advantages, and strategies that each approach offers.
Organic Social Media:
Organic social media primarily focuses on:
Encouraging engagement.
Content creation.
Expanding reach.
Building long-term relationships.
Although there's no direct cost associated with organic social media, it's important to consider the indirect costs, which involve resources and time spent on content creation, copywriting and engaging with followers. With consistent posting and active community engagement, you can gradually build an organic following which is a great step towards creating strong brand loyalty.
Paid Social Media:
On the other hand, paid social media differs from organic social media in several ways, including:
Content promotion.
Extended reach.
Costs involved.
Enhanced engagement and conversions.
Achievement of short-term goals and results.
Scalability.
Paid social media, in contrast to organic efforts, offers a distinct set of advantages. It excels in content promotion, allowing you to reach a wider audience by leveraging the platform's advertising capabilities. While organic methods rely on gradual growth, paid social media delivers extended reach in a shorter timeframe, thanks to targeted ad campaigns.
Paid media is particularly effective for achieving short-term goals and generating quick results, making it an excellent tool for time-sensitive promotions or product launches as well. Additionally, its scalability means you can easily adjust your budget, which channels you would like to use and campaign optimization as your needs evolve. With the Adcredos platform, you can gain deep insights through comprehensive reporting and optimize your campaigns based on these insights.
The Significance of Organic Social Media
Now that we've outlined the distinctions between organic and paid social media, let's explore organic social media in greater detail.
Organic social media is a channel strategy where businesses create and share original content on social media platforms without paying for reach. The content posted can vary depending on the platform and typically includes text posts, images, videos, blog articles, and more.
In addition to posting branded content, organic social media involves community engagement, such as responding to user comments and fostering conversations on the platform. While organic social media may not offer the massive reach and targeting capabilities of paid social media, it remains a fundamental component of a holistic digital marketing strategy.
But why is organic social media essential when it doesn't deliver extensive reach and immediate conversions? The primary goal of organic social media is to engage with the brand's existing follower base and cultivate long-term relationships with customers. It's also a platform for companies to establish their brand voice and authenticity.
For example, consider the approach of a brand like Ryanair, which keeps its content lighthearted and engaging without directly promoting products or services. Ryanair keeps its audience engaged with funny comments, videos and sassy remarks and thereby boosting engagement and visibility. We recommend you visit Ryanairs TikTok account for a laugh and to get insprired.
Example: Ryanair, Tiktok
Its a great example of a brand using humor to engage with followers
In today's competitive landscape, brands must get creative to make their organic content stand out. However, organic reach on social media declines each year, making it challenging to engage with existing followers and attract new ones. This is where paid social media comes into play.
The Role of Paid Social Media
Paid social media involves promoting content through various social media and search platforms, offer several benefits:
The ability to target your audience and chose to tailor content to suit your target audiences.
Expansion and scaling of reach.
Increased overall engagement.
Effectiveness in achieving short-term goals like lead generation or purchases.
Ability to track and measure campaign performance.
Paid social media ads typically come in various formats, including video ads, image ads, and carousel ads. Video ads, in particular, have gained prominence and are featured on multiple social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Twitter (X). We always recommend you use video ads when possible. Learn more here about the power of videos.
Each platform offers specific ad inventory locations, such as newsfeeds, stories, reels, and more. Some brands create dedicated content for different audiences and platforms, while others choose to boost their organic content to a broader audience.
Paid Social Media and Search platforms also allow you include clickable Call-to-action buttons such as "Shop Now", "Download", "Learn more" and encourage users to like, comment, or share the ad for further engagement.
Creating a Strategy that Integrates Organic and Paid Social Media
Now that you understand the distinctions and advantages of both organic and paid social media, it's time to create a cohesive strategy that seamlessly integrates both approaches.
Step 1: Define Your Goals
Every effective strategy begins with well-defined goals. Start by establishing the overarching objectives and then specify goals for each channel, whether it's organic or paid social media. These goals could include increasing brand awareness, driving web/app traffic, generating leads, or boosting purchases and revenue. Ensure that you associate each goal with the appropriate approach. On Adcredo you have the possibility to create campaigns across channels and objectives in a few easy steps, all you need to do is connect your ad accounts to the platform.
Step 2: Identify Your Target Audience
Understanding your target audience is crucial. You must not only uncover demographic information but also understand their online behavior and preferred platforms. Researching this information will guide both your organic and paid social media efforts, ensuring that you're reaching the right people on the right platforms. Once you've identified your target audience, use this information to build relevant audience lists for paid social media campaigns. We always recommend trying new platforms to make sure you aren't missing out on where your audience is. I can many times surprise you!
Step 3: Identify Platforms and Content types
Choosing the right social media and search platforms is essential. While running paid social campaigns on multiple platforms is typically easier, establishing an authentic organic presence on each platform can be time-consuming, especially if it's a platform your brand hasn't used before. Select platforms that align with your brand's goals and audience. Also, remember that different platforms cater to different audiences and content formats. For example, if you want to cater to a younger audience - then Snapchat is recommended.
Additionally, if you use Adcredos platform, you don't need to choose just one platform. You can save time and resources while gaining access to a wide array of major search and social media platforms, all seamlessly connected through our service. We always recommend you try different platforms to minimize the risk of missing out of your target audience. With Adcredo's approach, you can efficiently manage your campaigns and reporting from a single platform, without the need to log in to multiple tools. This centralized approach allows you to scale your efforts across different platforms easily, saving you time and effort while improving overall campaign performance.
Once you've identified your platforms, focus on content. Depending on your business goals and audiences, your content may vary between platforms and approaches. However, it's crucial to maintain a consistent brand identity, encompassing themes, topics, messages, imagery, and video aesthetics throughout. While organic content may aim to engage users on the platform, paid content may focus on promoting specific offers. Maintaining a cohesive theme, style, and language will help users associate and remember your brand more easily.
Step 4: Plan and Segment Organic and Paid Content
With your content themes in place, it's time to plan and schedule your content. For organic content, consider a mix of images, videos, polls, stories, and more. Remember that organic content should provide value and prioritize engagement.
From a paid social media perspective, align your campaigns with the organic content calendar to ensure a synergized effort. For instance, running ads for a new product launch or a significant sale can boost immediate sales while also strengthening your brand organically for the long term. We always suggest using video formats whenever possible, as they often hold the attention of potential customers for a longer duration. Additionally, it's worth considering the inclusion of subtitles, as many viewers opt to watch content without sound. This can enhance the accessibility and engagement of your videos.
To create your paid marketing campaigns consider launching multiple campaigns simultaneously through Adcredos easy-to-use platform. With automated workflows provided by Adcredo, you can efficiently manage and update your campaigns across multiple platforms at once. Let Adcredo take care of your campaign automation needs, so you can focus on creatives and advertising strategy.
Step 5: Create, Follow-up and Optimize on Campaigns! And Repeat!
This step primarily focuses on paid social campaigns, but optimization and analysis should be part of both organic and paid approaches. Adcredo's reporting tool provides real-time data, so you always have access to the latest insights and performance metrics for your paid marketing campaigns. This allows you to quickly make informed decisions and adjust your campaigns as needed. Book a demo today to learn more About Adcredo's Campaign Management and Reporting system can help you reach your target audience today.
