How To Put Paid and Organic Social Media to Their Best Uses

From reaching the right audience to boosting sales, paid and organic social media marketing work together to help businesses achieve their marketing goals. Each of these social media strategies has its best uses and, when combined, amplifies your reach. This guide focuses on these top uses:

Organic Social Media Uses

• Audience engagement
• Content strategy
• Community building
• Search engine optimization (SEO) benefits
• Analytics and insights

Paid Social Media Uses

• Targeted advertising
• A/B testing
• Budget management
• Measuring return on investment (ROI)

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Organic Social Media Best Uses

Organic social media marketing allows businesses to build authentic relationships with their audience. It contributes to long-term brand loyalty and trust, as these show commitment to genuinely connecting with customers and providing value beyond promotional messages. Marketers use organic social media campaigns for the following reasons:

     1. Improving Audience Engagement

Organic social media marketing fosters authentic interactions. It allows businesses to connect with their audience personally by responding to comments, addressing concerns, and building a loyal community. Organic content is less promotional, making it more appealing to users who appreciate valuable and genuine interactions.

For example, a local event planning business improves audience engagement through organic social media marketing. They use strategies such as behind-the-scenes glimpses of their event preparation process. They share photos and short videos of their team setting up venues, arranging decorations, and testing sound systems.

This transparent and relatable content generates excitement and sparks conversations as followers ask questions or provide suggestions for upcoming events. These efforts increase engagement and create a stronger sense of community around the brand.

     2. Supporting Content Strategy

Organic social media marketing allows a more nuanced and flexible approach to content creation. It enables businesses to diversify their content using articles, videos, images, and stories tailored to the audience's preferences. Organic strategies focus on storytelling, conveying the brand's values, and building a narrative over time, creating a deeper connection.

A landscaping business enhances its content strategy through organic social media marketing. They share a series of seasonal "before and after" photos and videos of their landscaping projects. These visually compelling posts showcase their skills and provide inspiration and practical tips for followers.

The landscaping company engages with its audience by discussing garden maintenance and sustainability, positioning themselves as industry experts and fostering community among gardening enthusiasts.

     3. Promoting Community Building

Organic social media marketing allows businesses to engage directly with their audience. Through consistent, non-promotional content, brands can establish themselves as a valuable resource within a specific niche or community. 

Organic strategies include sharing user-generated content and hosting Q&A sessions, polls, or live events, further strengthening the bonds between the brand and its community.

For instance, a local vet business improves community building through organic social media marketing by featuring "Pet of the Month" posts and showcasing their patients and heartwarming stories. They encourage followers to share pet stories, creating a supportive and engaging environment where pet owners are able to connect and seek advice.

The business also hosts live Q&A sessions with veterinarians to address common pet health concerns. This activity fosters trust and establishes them as a reliable local pet owners' community resource.

     4. Offering SEO Benefits

Another use of organic social media marketing is enhancing online visibility and driving traffic to a website. When businesses consistently share high-quality, keyword-optimized content on their social media profiles, it may appear higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). This increases the chances of being discovered by users searching for related topics.

Social signals such as likes, shares, and comments on organic posts indirectly influence SEO. These actions indicate content relevance and authority to search engines.

To illustrate, a local surfboard rental business can improve its SEO through organic social media marketing. They consistently share informative blog posts and videos about surfing tips, beach safety, and local surf conditions on their social media profiles. These posts encourage followers to share and engage with this content, increasing its visibility and reach. 

Over time, this strategy improves the website's search engine rankings for surfing-related queries. This drives more organic traffic and boosts its online presence.

     5. Enhancing Analytics and Insights

Organic social media marketing provides in-depth data on how organic content performs with the audience. Platforms offer native analytics tools that track engagement metrics such as likes, comments, shares, and impressions. These metrics help businesses understand what content resonates best and refine content strategies for better audience engagement.

Consider a car dealer improving marketing analytics and insights through organic social media marketing. They closely monitor engagement metrics on their posts and notice that video walkthroughs of their car inventory receive significantly more views and comments than static image posts.

Recognizing this trend, they adjust their content strategy to include more video content. This increases audience engagement and gives them a better understanding of their followers' preferences.

Paid Social Media Best Uses

Paid social media is a social ad strategy that allows businesses to reach a highly targeted audience at scale. It allows precise demographic and interest-based targeting, increasing the chances of attracting potential customers. It excels in the following:

     1. Increasing Success of Targeted Advertising Campaigns

Paid social media marketing offers robust tools to reach specific audiences with precision. Businesses can define their target demographics, interests, and behaviors and retarget past website visitors. Paid social media marketing efficiently uses budgets as ads are delivered to users likely to engage or convert.

For example, a residential real estate business improves its targeted advertising with paid social media marketing. They utilize detailed audience targeting options by initially creating custom audiences based on demographics, interests, and income levels.

The realtor implements retargeting campaigns to engage users who have previously visited their property listings, increasing the chances of conversions. This strategy allows the real estate business to allocate its advertising budget effectively and consistently to reach the most qualified leads in their local market.

     2. Supporting A/B Testing

Paid social media marketing provides a controlled environment to experiment with different ad elements and strategies. Businesses can create ad variations and split their audience to assess which performs best. Precise tracking and analytics enable them to measure key performance indicators such as clickthrough rates (CTR), conversion rates, and engagement metrics.

An example is a yoga studio that refines its marketing efforts using A/B testing. They run two different ad campaigns simultaneously. One campaign features images of serene outdoor yoga sessions, while the other emphasizes the studio's experienced instructors.

By closely monitoring the performance metrics, including CTR and lead generation, they discovered that the instructor-focused ads generated more interest and class sign-ups. This insight allowed the studio to allocate its budget more effectively, concentrating on the strategy that produced the best results.

     3. Allowing Budget Management

Paid social media marketing provides a high degree of control and flexibility. Businesses can set daily or lifetime budgets to ensure that they do not overspend. This allows them to adjust their budgets in real time according to campaign performance, focusing spending on the most effective ads. 

Paid marketing platforms provide forecasting and bidding options to achieve specific goals for budget-conscious businesses. For instance, a graphic design company enhances budget management using paid social media marketing. They closely monitor the performance of various ad campaigns across platforms. 

The company discovers that video tutorial ads on design software generate higher engagement and conversions. They reallocate their budget to prioritize these successful campaigns, improving overall budget utilization.

     4. Providing Analytics for Measuring ROI

Paid social media marketing is exceptionally effective for measuring ROI. It provides comprehensive analytics and tracking tools to allow direct attribution of conversions, such as website visits, leads, or sales, to specific paid campaigns. This offers a clear picture of what is driving results.

Additionally, cost-per-click (CPC), cost-per-acquisition (CPA), and return-on-ad-spend (ROAS) metrics are readily available. It becomes easier to calculate the direct financial impact of campaigns. 

A women's clothing company, for instance, enhances its ROI measurement using paid social media marketing. They implement conversion tracking pixels on their website to directly attribute online purchases to specific social media ad campaigns. 

They also use UTM virtualization software parameters to track the performance of individual ad creatives and audience segments. This allows precise optimization based on ROI data, improving campaign effectiveness.

Summing Up

The most effective social media strategy combines organic and paid approaches. Organic efforts help build a loyal following and engage with the audience, while paid efforts reach a broader, more targeted audience to achieve specific business objectives.

Remember to continuously analyze and adapt your marketing strategy to meet evolving goals and the changing social media landscape. Find out more about how a paid social media agency can help your business reach marketing success. Contact Digital Authority Partners (DAP) today.