Why you need both paid AND organic social for your business

By Sam Oliver & Aron Jheeta

This is a topic we see being raised frequently by the businesses we work with.

It’s often prompted by one of the following questions 🤔

❓ “Do I REALLY need paid ads? Can’t I save on budget here?”

❓ “If we have paid ads, can we save time by not doing any organic content?”

❓ “We don’t have the budget/resource – can’t we just do paid OR organic?”

And they’re all super valid points!

But with the social platforms more competitive than ever, your business is in a constant battle for attention.

We each scroll through 43ft of content per day on our phones. To put that into context, that’s about the same height as Big Ben!

If you’re not using both paid and organic social together, you’re missing a valuable opportunity to engage your current audience, reach more potential customers and convert them.

Ultimately, you’re leaving money on the table…

What’s the difference between paid and organic social media?

Let’s take it back to basics to start with.

Organic posts are just that…posts! They make up the majority of content that you see on your social media feeds. The ‘organic’ part just means that they don’t have any paid spend behind them.

For example, this is what ASOS’s Instagram feed looks like, filled with organic still images, carousels and Reel posts.

On the flipside, paid social posts have paid spend behind them. They can be categorised into two different types:

Boosted posts – This is content that was posted organically and then ended up having money added behind it to boost performance.

Dark ads – These are ‘invisible’ posts that are directly served to their intended audience. They’re invisible because you won’t see them on an Instagram profile, for example. These are often used for more sales-led ads, tempting you to buy products or services.

You can peek on the different ads businesses are running on Meta by looking in their Ads Library.

For example, here’s ASOS’s current ads. The majority of these will be dark ads, encouraging their audience to click through to the website and purchase their products (notice the direct ‘Shop Now’ CTA).

Why do you need organic social media?

Here are three quickfire reasons why organic social media is so important:

1. It helps to build awareness of your brand so customers know who you are. It’s important that when your audience is looking to buy a particular product that they’re aware of you – and that YOUR business is the first one they think of – not your competitors!
2. It creates a valuable relationship. By responding directly to comments or DMs, or by sharing UGC, you help to build trust – and customers don’t buy from a company they don’t trust.
3. It’s a valuable touchpoint for your business that’s FREE. It’s argued that most customers need an average of seven touchpoints before they feel comfortable buying from a company. Having regular content posted on your different social media channels can increase the chances of people buying from you.

Why do you need paid social media?

Organic social effectively works as your shop window. Keeping it updated regularly ensures that people coming across your brand know that you’re active and legitimate.

When it comes to paid social, think of it as your warehouse.

Whilst the shop window is enticing, your warehouse ensures that you don’t run out of stock.

You also learn a lot about which products are your most popular, which may affect the makeup of your shop window in the future.

Enough with the analogies, let’s get into the nitty gritty!

Most social media platforms have an advertising platform with a similar interface. The types of ad you can buy sit across the marketing funnel.

Every business has its own goals and challenges, and you can bet that social networks have an ad optimisation that supports this.

In short, paid social allows you to make a measurable return for your business efforts – whether it’s reaching your target audience frequently, growing traffic to your website or selling more products.

Let’s break it down into a few takeaways:

1. You are able to control who sees your content with paid social. Platforms offer targeting options that can be based on a multitude of factors, such as; age, gender, location, interest and user behaviour.
2. With paid social, you can accurately nurture ‘cold’ customers through the funnel, by controlling the frequency in which they see your ads, and re-targeting them with direct response.
3. By analysing your ad data both in-platform and on Google Analytics, you are able to find a measurable return on your investment. Be wary of this however, as platforms tend to measure conversions on if your ad has been seen within the sales cycle, whilst GA will measure conversions by the last channel that was clicked before the conversion was made.

What’s the benefit of running both at the same time?

With social media platforms constantly changing their algorithms, organic reach alone (for most brands) isn’t enough anymore.

Most platforms have turned into pay-to-play arenas, meaning that without paid ads, your posts might not even be seen by most of your followers. Hootsuite estimates that on Facebook, only 1-3% of your followers actually see your content!

Combining both strategies ensures that you’re not just shouting into the void but actually getting heard by a wider audience

When you run both organic and paid campaigns, you gather valuable insights about what resonates with your audience. For example, if a particular post performs well organically, you can boost it with paid ads to amplify its reach. This way, you’re not just throwing money at ads; you’re investing in content that’s already proven to work

By running both at the same time, you develop a community and nurture them closer to the point of purchase simultaneously. Organic interactions help foster loyalty and authenticity with your audience. People are more likely to buy from brands that feel genuine and relatable.

Meanwhile, paid ads can bring in new followers who might then engage with your organic content, creating a flywheel of growth and engagement. This cycle explains why brands like ASOS continue to grow on social.

That’s it from the second edition of The Social Strategy Newsletter. Hopefully you’ve found it useful!

If you have any questions, thoughts or feedback, let us know by reaching out via the social links below.

Speak soon,

Sam & Aron