Organic vs. Paid Social Media Marketing: Your Business Need Both

As a business person, you should be familiar with the term social media marketing. Social media marketing is part of digital marketing, including marketing through various digital aspects from websites to email marketing. Social media marketing or marketing through social media is often used for marketing products or services from a brand.
We usually use social media to share stories, images, videos, audios, etc. with other users. Social media is widely known and used by casual users. However people also use social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin, YouTube, and TikTok for business purpose as a marketing strategy. Marketing a product through social media is generally done in two ways: organic and paid.
You need to know these two marketing strategies through social media in-depth to be successful in your business. Today we will discuss marketing strategies through social media, both organic social media marketing and paid social media marketing. Read until the end to understand the differences between organic and paid social media marketing. Why you need both of them and how to integrate them at once.

Overview of Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is part of digital marketing and the right choice for a brand to promote a product or service through content on social media. Social media marketing aims to build a strong relationship or interaction with their target audiences.
According to a report from We Are Social entitled Digital 2021: the latest insights into the ‘state of digital,’ 170 million Indonesians are active users of social media. This figure means that around 61.8 percent of the total populations of Indonesia of 274.9 million people are active users of social media. Therefore, marketing through social media is an effective business strategy that you must carry out.
Social media marketing has several notable characteristics that distinguish it from other types of marketing, including:

• Target – Limited to social media users.
• Form of marketing – In the form of written content, images, audio, video, and others.
• Goals – Build, maintain, and increase interaction with your target audience.
• Speed – Faster because the targets covered are relatively limited.

According to Big Eye Agency, before doing social media marketing, there are 12 steps that you must prepare, namely:

1. Research and get to know your audience. What topics and discussions are they interested.
2. Use the social media used by the audience. Find out which platforms are suitable and most used by the target market.
3. Set goals. What do you want to achieve with social media marketing? The objectives must be biased into account quantitatively.
4. Write marketing concept. Social media marketing includes detailed marketing concepts on what kind of things you want to do. You should note that the marketing concept can be different for each platform used.
5. Define roles. Adjust the roles and responsibilities of each employee in marketing. For example, who should be the one posting, responding to the audience’s, or summarizing the report?
6. Set aside 30-60 minutes. Set aside time at the beginning of the week or month to schedule content. In addition, use the available time to plan content for the future.
7. Create detailed content. Each content must be written in detail, from topics, headlines, related links, posting times, and many more.
8. Post. Content must be relevant and following the objectives to be achieved. Make sure the posted content attracts the audience to interact.
9. Treat every platform. Each social media platform has different audience characteristics. Avoid posting across platforms at the same time with the same content.
10. Admin. Hire someone to become the customer support on social media to respond to every comment and feedback from the audience.
11. Periodic reports. Every week or month, review information on the progress of all posted content. Adjust to the needs and goals to be achieved.
12. Analysis. Always analyze the results of the social media marketing achievements that have been done. Is it following the objectives, or is there something that needs to be improved?

After knowing about social media marketing, its characteristics, and how to prepare for social media marketing, you need to know two types of social media marketing: organic and paid. Even though they may look similar, there are some differences between the two.

What is Organic Social Media Marketing?

Organic social media marketing is a way of marketing through social media done for free without any particular budget for marketing. You post for free and can be seen by followers and audiences who visit your brand’s social media account. As long as no particular budget is required, content is categorized as organic social media, regardless of the type of content.
Some types of content that you can share on social media platforms organically include:

• Posts in the form of text, pictures, and videos
• Posts with hashtags
• Posts with related links
• etc.

Organic social media is usually used for goals, such as:

• Promoting new or existing products or services
• Sharing content in the form of news and educational articles
• Inviting the audience to visit the brand’s website
• etc.

Because there is no need for cost, organic social media marketing aims to maintain and increase interaction with existing audiences. Content posted organically that provides helpful information is expected to attract the audience’s interest to interact so that a good connection is built. With a well-established relationship between your brand and the audience, they will likely choose to shop for your brand over competitors’ brands.

What is Paid Social Media Marketing?

As the name implies, paid social media marketing is a marketing strategy where you pay to advertise products or services from your brand on social media platforms. These ads will appear in the feeds of people who don’t follow your brand’s social media accounts but are considered a potential target audience for your brand’s consumers, based on specific criteria. These contents can be categorized as paid social media, as there are money spent so that the content can appear on the social media.
Some of the common paid social media marketing strategies include:

• Promoted posts
• Sponsored posts
• Ads in the form of text, images, and videos
• etc.

Paid social media marketing is usually used for specific goals, such as:

• Increasing brand awareness and capturing new followers
• Generating leads with promos, discounts, and more
• Increase conversions, such as sales transactions

The concept of paid social media marketing is to present the content of your ideal brand, provoke interaction, and effectively convey messages to audiences who don’t follow your brand’s social media account but are considered your potential customers. Every year, social media is getting increasingly crowded, making it difficult for content to appear organically. This is also supported by data from HubSpot, which shows that Facebook users now only see 2% of organic content in their feed.
Therefore, paying a certain amount of money to display brand content on social media is a fast and accurate solution to this problem.

Organic vs. Paid, Which is Better?

Organic and paid social media marketing strategies have their advantages and disadvantages. To understand it more clearly, you can see the following infographic:
Based on the infographic above, generally social media marketing aims to:

• Gain new followers and customers
• Promote quality content
• Research on the target audience

Meanwhile, organic social media marketing aims to build and maintain relationships between brands and existing audiences. The advantages of using organic social media are:

• Maintaining and cultivating a good brand image in the eyes of the audience and customers
• Supporting and retaining existing loyal customers
• Converting followers into new customers

Even though it does not cost any amount, organic social media has several drawbacks. One of them is the slow process required to achieve business goals. Organic social media takes a lot of time, experimentation, and experience to achieve the desired goals.
Meanwhile, paid social media marketing aims to directly connect you with potential customers or new audiences. The advantages of using a paid social media marketing strategy are:

• Reaching more potential customers
• Mapping the ideal target audience more precisely
• Reaching business goals faster

Unfortunately, paid social media marketing also has its drawbacks. Among them are so huge amount of budgets, which is burdensome for a brand that has just started its business. It requires competent experts in the field of social media advertising.

Why You Should Use Organic Social Media Marketing

As mentioned earlier, only 2% of organic content appears on Facebook users’ feeds based on data from HubSpot. Meanwhile, according to the Independent, 70% of organic content is invisible on Instagram user feeds. However, Animoto conducted a survey which turned out to have the opposite result.
Based on a survey of 1000 customers in 2020, 58% stated that they visited the brand’s social media before visiting its website. It means that when customers visit a social media brand, the first thing they see is organic content. So, why do you need to use organic social media marketing?

Shows Brand Consistency

Organic content is the first thing customers see when visiting your brand’s social media. It doesn’t matter if you place an ad and customers interact with your brand from there. What if they visit your social media from an ad, it turns out that the social media profile is empty?
Posting organically on social media will help build your brand image in the eyes of customers. Customers can learn more about the brand, the products you offer, and the messages your brand wants to convey.

Increase Brand Awareness

Organic content is content that is seen directly by people who follow your social media. So when you post something, the content will become part of the followers’ timeline or feed. The more often your followers are exposed to your brand’s content, the higher the opportunity to increase your brand awareness.
The higher the audience aware of the brand’s existence, the greater their tendency to become customers. Today, maintaining customer loyalty is just as difficult as reaching new customers. With organic content that is posted consistently, it will also create customer loyalty to your brand.

Very Effective When You Have Many Followers

Say your brand has thousands or even millions of followers on every social media platform used, organic social media marketing can be used very effectively as a business strategy. Logically, the more followers you have, the more people will see your content. However, if your brand is starting and doesn’t have many followers, you don’t need to worry because you will still generate interactions using organic content even with hundreds of followers.
Some of the best tips you can practice regarding organic social media marketing includes:

• Minimal promotion. Save your promotional budget for advertising. Instead of focusing on getting people to buy your product, focus on creating helpful and valuable content for your followers. It doesn’t hurt to hold promotions now and then, but promos must be on the sidelines of educational and inspirational content that will help followers get to know, trust, and feel connected to your brand.
• Maximize brand image. Contrary to promotion, you should maximize your brand image and personality with organic content. Use organic content to the fullest to show what and who your brand is. Show the people your brand values, the message you voice, and your interests as a brand.
• Strengthen your brand. Content posted organically is a great way to strengthen your brand. Take a look at your brand’s social media pages and what you see. What are the things that people want to know are there? Create content that shows what your brand is doing and what it stands for.

Why You Should Use Paid Social Media Marketing

Apart from organic social media marketing, a marketing strategy with paid social media marketing is also needed for your business. 24% of customers decide to make a purchase transaction after seeing the ad displayed on their feed or timeline. This is realized by brands, which have invested a lot to advertise their products on social media.
A survey from Animoto shows that 96% of business place advertising content in various forms on social media platforms, and 91% say they are satisfied with the results obtained from advertising. That being said, are you still not sure about implementing a paid social media marketing strategy? Here are the reasons why your business needs this strategy.

Increase Conversions to Sales Transactions

In general, every business aims to benefit from sales transactions. Paid social media marketing is a great way to increase conversions to sales transactions. Therefore, paying a certain amount of money does not seem to matter if you get the profit you expect.
As compared with organic content where you don’t need to spend any money to post, you also cannot expect the organic content to increase sales and profits effectively. Those who see such content are only followers and people who visit your brand’s social media.

Capturing More Specific Target Markets

Contents that are posted organically cannot target a specific target market. As long they are your followers, anyone can see the content you post, no matter their educational background, economy, gender, etc. With paid social media, you can target your target market specifically to people interested in the products or services you offer.
Some of the characteristics of your target market that you can tailor to your business needs include:

• Demographics
• Interest
• Behavior in cyberspace
• Level of education
• Marital status
• etc.

The parameters above allow your ad to appear in front of an audience likely to become your customers.

Inviting Audience to Visit Your Website

If you pay attention, the ads that appear on your timeline or social media feed will invite you to visit the advertiser’s website. Thanks to the help of the call-to-action (CTA) button, the audience can more easily access the brand’s website with just one click on the advertisement that appears. Of course, you can still link to your website on your social media profiles or through content posted organically.
However with paid social media, the possibility of your audience visiting your website will be higher. In addition to visiting the website, the function of the CTA button is more extensive. Things that you can place in the call-to-action button include:

• Visit the website
• Learn more
• Buy now
• Contact now
• Etc.

Just adjust the features of the CTA button above to your business needs and marketing strategy to maximize paid social media marketing to get the expected results. There are some special tips and tricks. Here is the best advice you can practice regarding paid social media marketing, namely:

• Create clear call-to-action buttons. Tell what you expect from the audience after seeing your ad. For example, if you want to increase sales transactions, invite users with the words “buy now.” Or, if you want users to visit the website, use the words “visit website.”
• Short and clear. Following the rules of good advertising, keep your ad short, clear, and straightforward. Ads are displayed to audiences who may not know your brand at all. Therefore, you need to keep your advertisements short and to the point.
• Trial and error. There is no exact study to learn what kind of advertising will bring benefits to your business. You may fail to reach the expected target initially, but that doesn’t mean you should give up. Try again and again, with a different message, different content, and a different call-to-action call, to improve the results your business expects.

Why Your Business Need Both

In the end, an excellent social media marketing strategy can provide significant results and follow what your business expects. Organic social media and paid social media are just tools to achieve business goals. You will achieve a more significant result if you use both.
Organic social media fosters a good brand image in customers’ eyes, retains existing customers, and converts existing followers into customers. Meanwhile, paid social media is used to reach more potential customers, map the ideal target audience more precisely, and achieve business goals more quickly. If you integrate the two together, you can benefit from building brand awareness, selling more products or services, and increasing customer brand loyalty on various social media platforms.
Practically, there are times when you need to focus more on creating educational and informative content that is posted organically. But at certain times, you also need to increase product sales or visits to brand websites, so you need a paid social media marketing strategy. Therefore, it will be more effective if you use organic and paid social media marketing simultaneously because both are proven to be more potent as a marketing strategy when paired and used together.
Of course, there are a few things you should pay attention to before integrating organic and paid social media marketing, including:

• Quality of content. Organic and paid social media marketing have their respective advantages and disadvantages. If you have this, you can use both of them to complement each other. However, what often goes unnoticed is the quality of the content itself.
  For example, suppose you have the type of content that invites the most engagement from the audience. Then you need to create similar content consistently. After that, you can focus on increasing engagement by boosting up one of the content through ads.
• Analysis of existing data. Social media as a business strategy now has many features that make your business easier. One of them is Insight which you can use to find out the characteristics of your audience. Use the data provided to analyze so that you find what strategy suits the aspects of your audience.
  By analyzing the characteristics of your audience, you can create content in a language style that your audience likes, what topics are of interest to them, and what products customers are desired. Armed with that, you can create content that the majority of the audience will like. You can start engaging with paid promotions to reach new audiences with similar characteristics to your customers by creating similar content.
• Strengthen the execution. A perfectly planned strategy will never get the desired results if the implementation is not mature. This expression is valid, including in marketing strategies through social media. Good marketing execution requires quality and experience from the people behind it.
  Of course, a social media marketing strategy requires a lot of trial and error to find the right formula. Routinely creating and posting varied content can be the right solution. After that, pay attention to the engagement of each content, and from there, you can implement a marketing strategy that will be right on target.

Summary

Digital marketing strategies are now widely used by many businesses, both from well-known brands and new pioneering brands. Social media marketing is a part of digital marketing that is widely used by brand, considering it is very effective in achieving the desired business goals. For example, to gain new followers and customers, promote quality content, and conduct research on target audiences.
Marketing strategies through social media are generally divided into two, namely organic social media and paid social media. Both have their characteristics, advantages, and disadvantages to use and adapt to your business needs. In the end, you need both of them to be used together to get maximum results and achieve your business goals.
Hopefully, this article can be your guide in implementing social media marketing strategy. See you later!