Paid Social vs Organic Growth: When to invest?

The role that social media plays in modern marketing makes it one of the most powerful and influential elements of any digital marketing campaign, no matter the budget. It offers opportunities to reach new audiences, connect with your most loyal fans and bring on ambassadors for your brand to further elevate your online trustworthiness and reliability.

It’s popular. But with this undeniable popularity comes steep competition. So, when does it become useful to put some of your marketing budget behind some paid social campaigns, and when would you be better off saving your budget for other challenges?

This article explores the key differences, advantages, and challenges of organic and paid social media. Read on to discover when to focus on building a natural following and when to invest in paid campaigns to maximise results.

• Understanding the difference between Paid vs Organic social media
• Pros and cons of Organic social media
• The power of Paid Social: pros and cons
• When to focus on Organic growth
• When to invest in Paid Social campaigns
• Balancing Paid and Organic
• Tracking success - how to measure Paid and Organic performance

Understanding the difference between Paid vs Organic social media

Here’s a quick overview before we dive into the details.

Organic social media
This is any free content shared directly on your business’s social media channels. It includes any posts, stories, reels, and interactions with followers. So, basically, your existing social media account and activity.

Organic social relies on follower engagement and algorithm reach for visibility. It’s all about who’s already a fan of your brand, and what the algorithm is picking up on.

Paid social media
Any “paid social” is promotional content that you pay platforms to distribute. This can involve ads, boosted posts, sponsored content, and more. In short, if it’s on social media, and you’re paying for it to be seen, boosted and targeted to a certain audience, it’s paid social.

This targets specific audiences based on demographics, interests, and behaviours, that you can often control yourself when creating the ad or the specifics around promoting a post.

Pros and cons of organic social media

Organic social has a tried and tested return on the time invested in it. But there are some cons that are worth considering.

Pros

• Cost-effective: No monetary investment required from your budget.

• Authenticity: It helps build trust and genuine relationships with your followers.

• Longevity: Evergreen content can remain relevant over time (providing you make this a pillar of your marketing strategy), so you’ve got less updating to do!

• Engagement-focused: A consistent social media presence encourages conversations and community-building. Let your audience develop authentically.

• Brand credibility: A strong organic presence can build trust and a sense of reliability with your brand.

Cons

• Time-intensive: Organic social requires consistent effort to create and share content.

• Algorithm challenges: Algorithms are constantly shifting, and most platform companies like Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn don’t provide much insight into what impacts each algorithm.

• Slow growth: Building an audience takes time and patience. You can’t expect results at speed!

• Limited targeting: Your organic social efforts rely on current followers and their networks, limiting your options for targeting.

The power of paid social: pros and cons

Paid social has some obvious advantages, but there are some important cons to take note of to really make the most of your budget.

Pros

• Quick results: You’ll get immediate exposure to your chosen target audiences.

• Precise targeting: With paid social, you can reach specific demographics and behaviour audience segments with ease.

• Scalability: Your campaigns can be adjusted based on budget and goals, giving your flexibility as your business scales.

• Enhanced visibility: Paid social is a way to push past any algorithmic barriers. In the world of PPC, money talks.

• Data-driven insights: Along with your results from your ad spend, you’ll also collect data and analytics to measure performance. This can feed into optimising both paid and organic marketing efforts.

Cons

• Costly: Paid social requires financial investment, which can add up quickly if you're not strategic with your campaign management.

• Short-lived impact: Simply put, your results stop when the campaign ends, giving a short half-life to your marketing efforts.

• Ad fatigue: Repeated exposure can lead to the audience losing enthusiasm for seeing your ads, even if they are expertly created and targeted.

• Risk of poor ROI: Ineffective targeting or content can waste resources (and budget!)

When to focus on organic growth

Money can’t buy everything, especially when it comes to paid social. Here’s when to focus your efforts on everything that doesn’t cost you a penny, and why.

Start-ups and small businesses: Limited budgets make organic a natural starting point, so see your lack of budget as an opportunity to build a strong foundation of organic marketing.

Brand building: If you’re looking to establish your brand, this can be achieved effectively through curated organic social media content. There’s no need to put a price tag behind the posts themselves, if your branding work is strong.

Long-term strategy: When aiming for sustainable growth over time, you’ll always fall back to your organic marketing efforts, as these will target your most loyal followers.

Content-driven industries: If you’re a business that is reliant on storytelling or high-quality visuals, organic marketing is just as relevant as any paid opportunity, due to the need for a constant output of posts.

Building relationships: Organic marketing is the best way to focus on building trust and a loyal community. It’s an authentic way to nurture followers through meaningful interactions.

When to invest in paid social campaigns

If you already have a strong foundation of organic social posts, it’s a great opportunity to build on that success with a paid social campaign. Here’s when to benefit from parting with some of that all important budget.

Launching products/services: Now’s the ideal time for instant visibility for your new offers, products and services. Your followers want to hear about your next big thing!

Time-sensitive promotions: Flash sales, events, or limited-time offers all deserve a competitive boost, as it’s an ideal time to bring in record conversions for your brand.

Reaching untapped audiences: Expanding beyond your current follower base is tricky, but with paid social, you can expose entire new demographics to your brand.

Driving website traffic: Paid ads can lead directly to landing pages, so if your new URL needs a boost, you know what to do.

Competitor-heavy markets: Standing out requires targeted exposure, and in today's market, keyword stuffing just isn’t enough to guarantee results. Paid social puts your name on the map, in the right place for your audience.

Scaling quickly: When organic growth is too slow to meet business objectives, paid social offers a fast way to scale, relative to your growth.

Balancing paid and organic

The key to success in both fields lies in a balance. We’d recommend using a blend of organic and paid social, to get the best out of both mediums.

The importance of integration

• Complementary strategies: Using organic social to build relationships and paid social to amplify your visibility online is a truly winning formula.

• Test and refine: Use paid campaigns to test content that can later be incorporated organically. It’s a quick way to see what’s working, saving you time and streamlining your focus for any organic content.

• Maximise ROI: A great way to boost high-performing organic posts is with paid campaigns. This exposes your most engaging content to a new audience.

Practical tips

• Start with organic content to establish authenticity and credibility.

• Gradually introduce paid campaigns for targeted reach to new audiences.

• Monitor results regularly to balance efforts effectively and ensure you’re only spending where it counts.

Tracking success - how to measure paid and organic performance

Here are the best metrics to track and analyse for paid and organic social.

Organic metrics

• Engagement rate: Likes, comments, shares, and mentions.

• Follower growth: Increase in audience size over time.

• Content reach: Number of users exposed to organic posts.

• Website traffic: Visits driven by organic social content.

These metrics can be tracked using the built-in analytics platforms on various social media channels, such as YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. Website traffic can often be tracked using Google Search Console.

Paid metrics

• Cost-Per-Click (CPC): Cost of individual ad interactions.

• Click-Through Rate (CTR): Percentage of users clicking on ads.

• Conversion Rate: Actions taken after interacting with ads (e.g., purchases or sign-ups).

• Return On Ad Spend (ROAS): Revenue generated compared to ad spend.

Paid social metrics can be tracked using the many built-in paid social management platforms on each social media platform. You can also back up a lot of this data in GA4.

In closing...

Organic and paid social media both play a vital role in any successful marketing strategy. Organic helps to build trust, a much needed element in today's modern marketing environment. Paid social campaigns deliver immediate results at speed, making them perfect for reaching new audiences or promoting time-sensitive offers.

The key to finding success lies in a balance of the two, and not rushing into spending that isn’t meaningfully backed up with intentional analysis of your data. By understanding the benefits and unique strengths of both options, you’ll be ready to use the full power of social media to drive growth, engagement and long-term success for your brand.

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