Paid social media marketing and organic social media marketing have both their pros and cons, depending on your brand, target audience, and goals.
Both paid and organic social media marketing can be helpful for brands looking to establish themselves in their niche.
Each type of social media marketing will have advantages depending on the scenario, but one is not necessarily better than the other.
The key is to implement them both appropriately and effectively.
Read on to learn more about how each type of social media marketing can help your brand achieve its goals.
What is Paid Social Media Marketing?
Paid social media marketing is when a brand pays social media networks to promote its posts on their platforms.
Many social media networks have paid marketing options that allow brands to promote their posts.
Paid social media marketing can be helpful for brands to reach their target audiences,
especially if those audiences are difficult to reach organically.
Paid social media marketing can be effective for specific types of brands, such as brands with small budgets or brands looking to target specific groups.
Some social media networks allow brands to purchase ads that appear in users’ feeds or timelines.
Other social media networks allow brands to purchase ads that appear in users’ search results or in sidebar ads on the platform.
Ads can show different types of content, such as images, videos, or text.
Ads can also be targeted toward specific demographics or be designed to reach a specific audience.
Audiences can be defined by interests, age, gender, location, and similar websites that someone visits.
There are several ad platforms you can choose from, depending on your business needs.
Depending on your ad goals, you may want to consider the costs, targeting options, and other factors before choosing an ad platform.
What is Organic Social Media Marketing?
Organic social media marketing is when a brand posts content on social media networks and those posts organically reach their target audiences.
Organic social media marketing is free, as brands don’t have to pay to reach their audiences on social media networks.
However, brands have less control over the reach of their organic posts than paid ads do.
Using organic social media marketing can be helpful for brands building their reputations and relationships with their audiences.
Organic social media marketing involves posting content to social media sites with the goal of attracting natural buzz and engagement from your target audience.
This type of social media marketing focuses on authentic and genuine interactions with your followers rather than a quick sale.
There are many benefits to organic social media marketing, including the fact that it’s generally cheaper than other marketing strategies.
You can also see results much more quickly with this type of social media marketing as compared to other strategies.
Pros of paid social media marketing
– Reach – Some social media networks allow brands to use targeting options to narrow down their reach.
Paid social media marketing allows brands to be more specific with their reach.
– Control – Like reach, paid social media marketing allows brands to have more control than organic social media marketing.
With paid social media marketing, brands have full control over their ad creative, targeting options, and budget.
Furthermore, brands can use social media management tools to monitor and track the performance of their ads.
– Budget – Paid social media marketing is significantly flexible and you can start with $5.
This can be helpful for brands with small marketing budgets.
– Create brand awareness – Paid social media marketing can spread brand awareness among people who haven’t heard of the brand before.
– Test and measure – Paid social media ads are a good way to test different types of content while measuring how well they perform.
– Grow social media following – Paid social media marketing can help brands grow their social media following by increasing their engagement and reach.
Pros of organic social media marketing
– Organic reach – Organic social media marketing reaches a wide variety of people.
Although different types of content will reach different audiences, organic social media marketing allows for a more wide-reaching audience than paid advertising does.
– Build relationships – Organic social media marketing is helpful for brands because it allows them to build relationships with their audiences.
– No budget – Organic social media marketing is free, so brands don’t have to worry about setting aside a budget for social media marketing.
– Improve SEO – SEO is important for brands, and organic social media marketing can help improve SEO.
– Control – Organic social media marketing gives brands more control than paid social media marketing.
– Test and measure – Organic social media marketing is also a good way to test different types of content while measuring how well they perform for pages with an audience.
– Brand reputation – Organic social media marketing can help brands build their reputation among their audiences.
– Build brand awareness – Organic social media marketing can help build brand awareness among people who haven’t heard of the brand before.
Cons of paid social media marketing
– Cost – Paid social media marketing is expensive.
It’s helpful to know exactly how much you need to spend to be successful with paid social media ads.
– Time – It can take time to get your paid social media ads off the ground.
It can be frustrating to have a campaign drag on without any results.
– Control – Paid social media marketing gives brands more control, but that control can be detrimental.
Allowing a terrible ad to run for too long can result in your brand looking spammy.
– Brand reputation – An ineffective paid social media campaign can harm your brand reputation instead of helping it.
– Reach – Paid social media marketing reaches a specific audience, too bad if it’s the wrong audience.
– Data – Paid social media marketing provides brands with data about their campaigns, but it can be difficult to decipher that data if you lack an understanding of what you should be measuring.
Cons of organic social media marketing
– Time – It can take time to get your organic social media posts off the ground.
It can be frustrating to have a post reach only 1% of your total audience.
– Control – Organic social media marketing gives brands less control over who is reached.
– Reach – Organic social media marketing reaches a wide audience.
However, that wide audience can make it difficult to be specific with your posts and target your ideal audience.
– Budget – Organic social media marketing is free, but it can be costly to run.
It can be difficult to find the time to create high-quality content while also managing your other business tasks.
Final words
Social media marketing can be helpful for brands looking to establish themselves in their niche.
Paid social media marketing and organic social media marketing have both their pros and cons,
depending on your brand, target audience, and goals. Both paid and organic social media marketing can be helpful for brands looking to establish themselves in their niche.
The key is to implement them both appropriately and effectively.
Timothy Mbiti
I am an entrepreneur and co-founder at PicketMaze. I specialize in search engine optimization and digital marketing.
