If you’re searching for a successful approach to engage with your target audience, build brand awareness, and increase your return on investment, integrating your paid and social media strategies is a great way to get started.
According to Hootsuite’s 2022 Social Trends report, 65% of marketers have fully merged their paid and organic social media strategies within the last year. Of those marketers, 32% are confident they will see a rewarding return on their investment. Not only will you build your social media presence and engage with customers organically, but integrating paid social into your plan will help get your brand attention, drive conversions, and boost sales.
As experts in the space for 17+ years, we’ve seen brands experience greater success when leveraging these tactics simultaneously. With both organic and paid social media equally important, integrating them is a must to accomplish multiple goals simultaneously.
Social media algorithm updates have significantly impacted who sees your posts across different platforms. This has created competition all around, with organic reach declining when used as the only form of marketing. Understanding your target audience can combat this; however, it has shifted how brands spend their social media budget.
We’re here to talk about the ways to integrate the two to maximize results:
Organic Social Media
On a more granular level, organic content is best used for brands to use their personality and voice, build relationships, engagement, and support through customer service. In organic content, you will see anything from user-generated content on Instagram to funny and lighthearted tweets on Twitter from brands like Wendy’s and McDonald’s tweeting as if they were a person vs. a fast food restaurant. This leads to, in most cases, positive engagement and attention from other brand accounts or customers. While organic social media is free, remember that it takes time and practice to perfect.
Paid Social Media
On the other hand, paid social media has a direct connection to sales. Simply put, brands (or their agencies) can pay social platforms directly to increase their content or page visibility. Unlike organic posts, paid media often includes sponsored content in the form of an ad. You can boost specific posts so they are featured on your target audience’s feed without them realizing it’s even an ad! You can use sponsored content to reach potential consumers, even if they don’t follow you, as long as you define a specific target demographic. Promoted posts are displayed to people who click like on your page or follow you already.
Ultimately, both are great approaches. Some ads allow you to include a discount code and a link to a landing page so whoever is viewing the post can click, leading them to start shopping or exploring. Typically, video ads get more engagement and views than images, especially in an interactive format. The video must be short and to the point, capture the viewer’s attention in the first couple of seconds, provide value, and, most importantly, include a link where the purchase or research can be made.
How They Work Together
At Likeable, we recommend thinking of organic social media as your foundation and paid is there to support and help reach new audiences and ultimately increase traffic or sales. It’s important to keep in mind that you want to build an engaged community of followers who are interested in your product or service so that they will genuinely enjoy the posted organic content. Essentially, organic posts can lead you in the right direction on how you should market on each platform. By tracking who visits your page and how frequently, you can learn more about the audience demographic, how they found you, and which influencers they follow. This can help when deciding what type of content to promote, who to target, and the format of posts your audience gravitates towards.
By understanding the influencers your target audience follows, you can start gathering information on a strategy for paid influencer marketing. This is also a great way for the audience to connect with your brand, especially if someone they follow, know, and trust is recommending it. Both campaigns drive results and lead to new customers, business leads, and conversions. Pairing the two strategies can allow you to show the positive effects that the social initiatives are having on your overall business.
While both approaches are important individually, using them together can be even more beneficial to a brand. Even if your organic post is getting lots of engagement and traction, using a paid tactic, such as boosting the post, can maximize its potential and create more buzz around it – whether it’s comments or likes. While important, paid shouldn’t be viewed as a substitute. Strong organic content is just as important and shows a brand’s personality. The organic approach is here to stay, and while it does take time and strategy, it is worth it in the end, mainly when used with the paid approach for support.
Interested in building a social strategy that leverages both organic and paid? We’re here for you!
