It doesn’t matter if you are a multinational company or a small local shop; there’s simply no way around it: your business needs a social media presence. It is where your customers – and your competitors – are. All. The. Time.

Having an online presence gives your brand social proof, increases awareness, helps you connect with your audience, and boosts your leads and sales. It is an essential piece of any business marketing strategy, in which you will gain more exposure and better understand your customers.

Social media marketing is constantly evolving, and so are the ways people use it. It can often feel overwhelming to keep up with the latest trends, but every shift brings new opportunities. As consumers change how they engage with social media, marketers have access to more data than ever on how users behave online. A chance to readdress strategies and set up social business accounts in a more thoughtful, measured way.

Nowadays, the predominant social media marketing structure relies a lot on promoted (paid) posts. They are a great tool for businesses to get extra awareness for the content they publish. However, most companies often underestimate the importance of organic posts. Organic marketing stands out when it comes to creating an authentic conversation with your audience, and consolidating the foundation that your ad strategy rests on.

To better understand how each marketing approach can boost your business growth, let’s delve a little further into the paid vs. organic posts and why you need a hybrid strategy that combines paid social and organic social.

Organic Social Media

Organic social media refers to the regular content that users post to a part of their followers on their feed. The number of your followers that will receive this organic content on their feed will depend on six factors: interest, timeliness, relationship, frequency, following, and usage.

The reason why organic social media is still so relevant, even though the delivery of the content is not as high as it used to be, is because it’s the best way to nurture a more personal connection with your customers. It allows you to share the story and the narrative of your business (both victories and failures), thus creating a trustworthy and relatable face for your brand. “People Buy From People” continues to be true.

When creating an organic social media strategy, make sure to establish the personality and voice of your business and keep it cohesive. Use this opportunity to tell your brand story. Build a community of people who share your company values and interests, and engage with your customers at every stage of their buying journey. Make sure to establish trust and support your customers with fast and reliable customer service. And listen to your audience! Too often, brands fail to do that, focusing only on what they have to say. So remember, these are social tools. Embrace the opportunity to learn people’s observations and behaviors and make improvements whenever necessary.

Paid Social Media

As the organic reach continues to decline, paid social media enables brands to break through the algorithm and discover new audiences that unlikely will reach you otherwise. It offers a unique opportunity to present your brand to new potential customers, reinforcing the messages – and products – that you release through organic social.

“Advertising logic tells us that impressions and traffic can (and often do) have an overall impact on bottom-line profitability. When evaluating specific ad platforms, it is important to understand the interrelationship between channels. Simple tests can be deployed to understand these connections quantitatively, such as A/B testing individual channels with and without social ads. Even without testing, it is a widely accepted concept that adding Paid Social to a marketing effort will likely lead to increased overall results – particularly with organic and paid search conversion.” – Ray Castro, in 3 Overlooked Strategies for Measuring the True Value of Paid Social Advertising

To wrap up, paid social and organic social shouldn’t be seen as competitive forces, but as complementary strategies in which each will make the other stronger. Deep knowledge of your audience will enable you to achieve lower PPC costs on the paid social side, extending the reach of your content while also continuing to nurture and engage with your followers.