Organic & Paid Social Marketing
How can organic and paid social marketing be used together effectively? It’s important to begin with a base knowledge of what these two vital marketing channels are. Organic social media is content posted directly to the business’ page including text, stories, memes, videos, etc. to an audience that directly follows your profile. Paid social is a form of advertising for which businesses pay social media networks to serve their content to specific target audiences beyond your followers. While they might appear similar, they often have very different results. By conducting a paid social campaign, you can build a progressive series of ads that take your potential customer from becoming aware of your business to making a purchase. Organically posting to your social media profile does well to engage with your base, but the paid channels allow you to execute a stronger level of control toward your goals.
For some situations, organic social is more suitable. Social media profiles allow your business to project some personality. They can provide facets to your marketing efforts with a sense of humor, dependably sound advice, or any other qualities you'd like prospects and customers to associate with your brand. Organic marketing is also priced differently than paid social marketing. This is because any costs you incur would come from the work it takes to engage with your community by creating inviting content to populate your social media feeds. Organic social media is also an excellent forum for direct communication with customers. This requires your business to respond to inquiries quickly. Organic social marketing reaches about 5% of your social media followers, but if you can dedicate the time and resources to consistently respond to all or most of them, you'll get a lot out of this type of interaction.
On the other hand, if you are looking to reach people outside your circle of followers, then you should consider paid social media marketing. Paid social marketing allows businesses to narrow down their target audience, to pinpoint more willing prospective buyers that may be unaware of your business offers. Prospects can be found by location, age, gender, or interests, then they will begin seeing targeted advertisements on their social media feeds. It’s also a good way to find people who don’t follow your business on social media or to touch base with specific audiences that would be receptive to your messaging. Regarding cost, these campaigns can usually be adjusted according to budget. Platforms allow a spending cap to be placed on your paid social efforts, so your budget is never exceeded.
A complete marketing plan uses both approaches to social marketing. Your business can leverage paid social media to immediately spread brand awareness and draw an audience to your profiles. Once they're there, precise organic content and an effective presence can capture their interest, convert them into customers, and retain them once they're on board. Organic marketing is a good supplement to paid marketing and a good platform to find out what resonates with your audience. Once you’ve learned what works, it can become a foundation for formulating your paid social ads. Remaining flexible and experimental in your approaches to social marketing is important to your success.
Imagemark’s digital strategists and designers can help you find the right mix of organic and paid social media strategies. We can even help you create top of the line images, compose post text that will intrigue and motivate your prospective customers, and employ marketing techniques that will set your business apart. Contact us today and let us help you navigate the use of both of these approaches to social marketing.