FineView Marketing

In the current marketing landscape, social media competes for the attention of billions of people every day. With this in mind, marketing professionals are working to reach consumers by fostering an active, dynamic social media presence. 

In its early days, social media was an organic marketing tool where companies could build an audience through engaging content that was liked, shared, and commented on. Over the past decade, however, paid social media in the context of ads, promoted posts, sponsored content, and influencer marketing has become a tactic to generate awareness. 

According to searchengineland.com, paid and organic efforts combined are responsible for 68% of website traffic: 53% from organic marketing efforts and 15% from paid marketing. Organic social media has become highly competitive, leaving businesses with no option but to spend at least a portion of their budget on paid advertising.

FineView Marketing understands the value of using both paid and organic social media marketing to influence existing and potential audiences. They are experts at finding that ideal, yet elusive, balance between organic and paid social media. 

Organic Social Media Marketing: Overview

Organic social media refers to free content that businesses and brands share with each other on their feeds. It creates relationships with audiences and establishes brand identity with valuable and engaging content. The focus of organic social media is to nurture either an existing relationship or a new connection. People who will be exposed to your social media are:

• Your “organic reach” (a percentage of your followers)
• Your followers’ followers (if your post is shared)
• People following hashtags that are used in the post

Organic social media is the foundation of digital marketing strategies. Instead of interrupting customers, organic social media attracts them with compelling, high-quality content that is appealing and provides value. Brands use organic social media to:

• Build relationships by sharing entertaining, relevant, and inspiring content
• Establish personality and voice
• Engage customers at every stage of the buying journey

Paid Social Media: Overview

Paid social media refers to brands that are paying Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube to have their content shared with targeted audiences. It gives you leverage in a competitive marketplace. Your reach will extend to customers who didn’t even know you existed and drive results by targeting, reaching, engaging, and converting customers quickly.

The immediate return of paid marketing campaigns is attractive because you don’t have to wait months for organic social media to drive conversions. Businesses and organizations use paid social media to:

• Attract new followers and raise brand awareness
• Promote specific content 
• Generate leads
• Drive conversions

How to Integrate Organic and Paid Social Media

Here are some key points to consider when integrating your organic and paid social media marketing strategies.

Track and Boost Your Organic Content

An easy and effective way to integrate paid and organic social media is to track your posts with analytics and capitalize on your more popular content. It’s simple to boost organic posts on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Allocate only a small budget to this before you create a comprehensive ad strategy. 

Stay Consistent Across Content

Maintaining consistency in image type, topics, tone, and calls to action (CTAs) in your paid and organic content offers a more seamless experience to consumers. Consider what generated the most engagement in your organic content and apply the same elements to your paid media. 

Leverage Paid Social Media to Retarget Inbound Traffic

Use low-competition, high-value keywords to attract traffic to your posts. The FineView Marketing team is highly experienced with  Search Engine Optimization strategies to convert more leads. Use multiple CTAs to direct these visitors to key pages of your website. Then, retarget those visitors with paid social media. Your marketing spend will be more effective because you’re earmarking the prospects who spend the most time browsing your website.

Use A/B (Split) Testing

Most brands produce organic content and then promote it if it does well. This has also been done in reverse order with excellent results. First, use A/B testing to test versions of paid media ads among smaller audiences. Then, test your CTA, copywriting, visuals, and format over various demographics. Finally, use the most successful techniques in your organic social media.

Target your ads to people similar to your organic audience

The larger your organic social presence, the more data you have about your ideal customer – location, age, interests, problems, and how you’re solving their problems. For example, most social platforms give you the option of creating a lookalike audience based on people who have engaged with your content or purchased a product or service in the last year. Build a lookalike audience composed of people with similar behaviors who are not yet aware of your brand.

Takeaway

To stay ahead of the curve, consider strategically integrating both organic and paid social media. Creating the ideal blend of these two can help you to learn more about your existing audience, attract new followers, and raise awareness of your brand.