During a conversation with a junior Social Media professional that I connected with during COVID-19, we naturally gravitated towards our work. She asked me how I explained to my clients the benefits of organic and paid Social Media in my experience. In this industry, some view this question as an "either-or" scenario; I view it as both sides of the same coin.

The short answer is you're probably going to want to do a bit of both.

Organic and paid social need to be utilized differently depending on your goals, both qualitative and quantitative.

In 2020, Social Media continues to require a holistic approach that balances awareness, with conversion being the end goal. It’ll serve you to know the pros and cons of each, even if you aren't working a budget for paid social.

Even if you've been doing social media for years, 2020 is an exciting time for social media professionals. Social distancing, the closing of many small businesses, and the lack of activities in the real world, overall screen-time usage is going up across the globe.

At the same time, ad spend for paid social isn't keeping up with that increase in overall screen time. Many brands are pausing their advertising to take a moral stance against hate speech or save money during an economic downtown. In turn, this has led the major social media platforms to experience volatility in their revenues.

The volatility in ad revenue also means there's evidence that the budget needed to run successful ad campaigns are going down. The great news is, for anyone doing social media marketing, it's an excellent opportunity to either increase your ad spending or get started to reach new leads or purchases instead of brand awareness.

A Statista in March study showcased that Facebook's Cost-Per-Click (CPC) went down from 11 cents to 9 cents between January and March of this year. Doesn't sound like a lot? In Q1 of 2019, just a year prior, the CPC for conversions dropped to $0.55.

So, where does that leave you and your brand's social media marketing strategy? The short answer is that it depends on what your goals are.

What is Organic Social Media?

When I mention organic social media, I'm talking about all of the content (posts, photos, video, memes, Stories) that lives on your feed from all users, including businesses and brands.

From the brand's perspective, when you post organically on your feed, you can expect the people who will see your content, ranked in order of volume:

A percentage of your followers (e.g., your 'organic reach')
People following/discovering any hashtags you use
Your followers' followers (if they choose to share your brand's content)

No matter your brand, organic social media, will be your social media marketing effort's life-blood. Even the brands with the highest ad spend rely on organic social content for various reasons:

For example, brands use organic social to:

build relationships by creating content that is entertaining, educational, and/or inspiring
establish their personality, tone, and voice
giving consumers an opportunity for dialogue, not only with the brand itself but also with other consumers
provide information about a brand through product news or company updates
support their customers with customer service efforts

While you can do all of these things with paid content, you're much likelier to 'tell your story' to a consumer who may not be interested in your brand due to a broad ad set. As such, organic content is the best way to nurture a 1:1 relationship with your customers, at scale

Here are a few examples of organic social content from various brands across multiple industries to better understand:

Chicago Designer and Entrepreneur JoeFreshGoods highlighting his partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in Chicago.

JoeFreshGoods (@JoeFreshGoods), a Chicago designer and business owner, showcased a recent partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. This creative not only teases his collaboration with the poster for sale, but he also showcases his style through his outfit and accessories.

Just look at that Wagyu Italian Beef sandwich from Tempesta Market.

One of my favorite places to get a sandwich in Chicago, Tempesta Market (@TempestaMarket), also does a great job at organic social content. You can't help but notice the visual appeal of both sandwiches and the salad. And from a copy perspective, they even include a Call to Action (CTA) to place an order by clicking the link in their bio.

Semillas Plant Studio in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago.

Finally, I wanted to recognize a local plant studio in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood Semillas Plant Studio (@SemillasChicago). Not only did this entrepreneur open a small business in the middle of COVID-19, but she's also leaning on her community for support, raising awareness of a new small business that is minority-owned. In less than two months, Semillas grew their Instagram following to over 6,000 followers.

How To Stay Relevant In An Ever-Growing Ecosystem

Now we've seen how brands in a variety of industries utilize organic content to achieve their marketing goals. And like all great things in life, there are some cons to go along with the pros.

All of the major social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter utilize algorithms to help filter out content that the platform believes will not be relevant to you and, in turn, create a negative experience within the app. Essentially, there are too many pieces of content to engage with, let alone view.

Meaning, you and every other user are only seeing a small percentage of all of the organic posts at any given moment. As a creative person, knowing that my content will be filtered out, no matter how relevant it is to your audience, stings a little.

One of my top posts from an engagement standpoint and yet, less than 12% of my following engaged with this piece of content.

According to a 2019 Hootsuite study, organic Reach on Facebook in late 2019 was down 2.2% compared to the previous year. This decline means the average Reach for an organic Facebook post is about 5.5% of a brand's follower count. If we're talking about large brands like a big-box retailer, that number is even smaller.

What brands and advertisers are experiencing is a gradual decline in organic Reach due to various reasons. The number of users on these platforms continues to grow as more people worldwide gain access to the Internet and smartphones.

For humanity as a whole, this is a positive thing; however, on social media, that means there is an over-saturation of content. All of this content and very little time to consume it.

We know that attention spans are getting shorter. Combine the two, and it's no surprise that our collective brains struggle to process the amount of information coming from our phones.

On top of that, we're living through social and racial unrest, with these very platforms being abused to spread disinformation and hate speech, causing CEOs of advertisers to rethink their mission.

What that means is that it is now more challenging than ever to get your content seen by your audience, let alone potential customers or fans.

This is where you flip that coin and look to leverage paid social.

What is Paid Social Media?

Paid social media is another form of advertising, like Out-Of-Home (OOH), SEM, or experiential. When brands pay money to have their content shared on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube, specifically to reach new audiences who are likely to be interested in their brand or product, that's paid social media. Paid social media exists by either "boosting" a brand's organic content or designing unique advertising units.

As more people increase the time spent looking on their screens, brands see an opportunity to invest more in paid social ads. This increase in overall screen time is also shaping us to be more comfortable with completing transactions directly within the feed using key features like Instagram's shop feature.

And just like organic content, there is a way for any brand or business to utilize paid social ads, regardless of budget or size. We know organic social content is excellent for giving consumers an opportunity for dialogue, not only with the brand itself but also with other consumers. Let's learn how you can use paid social content:

Paid social content is best utilized to target and reach new audiences on social media, to move consumers through the conversion funnel. Brands use paid social content to:

drive conversions (mostly CPG / eCommerce brands)
generate leads for retargeting efforts
promote deals, events promos, or partnerships
raise brand awareness and garner new followers

Comparing Organic and Paid Social Media

As we've discussed, organic and paid social media strategies each have their pros and cons. Let's recap what we've gone over.

When shaping your organic social media strategy, remember the goal is to create content that nurtures your relationship with your audience. Organic social content helps:

establish a brand's personality, tone, and voice
support and retain existing customers through customer service efforts
provide information about a brand through product news or company updates

Despite all of the advantages of organic social content, brands and marketers know that organic content alone will take a significant amount of time to reach established business goals. Yes, organic social content is technically free to post, but there is no clear-cut formula for social success. And as such, marketers need to test and experiment to see actual results.

Flip that coin, and now we're looking at paid social content. For an effective paid social media strategy, your brand's goal is to connect with new customers or audience members. Paid social content helps by:

generating leads for retargeting efforts
driving conversions (mostly CPG / eCommerce brands)
raising brand awareness and garnering new followers at scale
promoting deals, events promos or partnerships

While you need some form of a budget to run paid ads, you don't need to be spending hundreds of dollars a day to do so. I've even had success "boosting" my organic content, a quick recap video post of my talk at SocialRock Conference 2019 to increase its Reach, and hopefully, drive new followers to my page.

For next week's post, I'm going to dive into exactly how one can implement an organic and paid social strategy.