With a variety of options like organic, boosted, promoted and paid strategies, creating an effective social media plan to support brand growth can feel overwhelming. Each approach has its unique advantages, which can vary depending on a brand’s business goals. Therefore, it's essential to find the right balance when incorporating these strategies into your overall plan.
Organic social is unpaid content, ranging from copy, photos and videos, that brands share on social media. It's akin to the social media equivalent of low-hanging fruit. Any brand can leverage organic content to build authentic relationships and foster a sense of community with its target audience — all without spending a penny (aside from paying the person producing the content, of course).
We view organic social as a powerful brand-building tool that establishes long-term equity by authentically showcasing a brand’s values, culture and personality. While it’s not always a direct sales channel, it plays a critical role in driving consideration, loyalty and ultimately ROI by deepening audience connection and trust. Unlike traditional ads, organic social facilitates and encourages two-way communication, allowing for comments, replies and user-generated content, all of which can help bolster a brand's following.
Although organic reach is declining on some platforms — particularly because of algorithm changes — this approach requires a "slow and steady wins the race" mindset. Organic social can be incredibly valuable for brands looking to engage in long-term relationship building and keep their brand top-of-mind while establishing relevancy. This is just one tool in our toolbox that can be leveraged alongside one or more of the other approaches.
Think of this as an organic post that gets a little extra love (boost) thanks to a paid promotion. Brands typically boost or promote high-performing organic posts or those featuring a timely announcement, sale or event as a way to increase reach and engagement beyond a brand’s existing followers. This approach is a cost-effective way to enhance visibility of brand content and connect with a larger audience than organic social media alone.
One downside is that boosted posts generally offer more limited business objectives to choose from and fewer ad placement options. For example, as Hootsuite notes, Meta only allows advertisers to select placements for boosted posts on Instagram, Facebook mobile and the desktop feed. Additionally, once the promotion period ends (usually within 3-5 days, but up to several weeks), the reach and engagement of the post are likely to decline as well.
Paid social, as Hootsuite so eloquently described it, is “like paying for a billboard on the digital highway.” This highly strategic approach allows brands to precisely target their audience using various factors such as demographics, interests and behaviors. It’s also scalable, meaning brands can adjust their budgets and make data-driven optimizations based on analytics.
However, there are a few barriers to entry with paid social advertising. First, it requires a budget and can become costly if not managed effectively. Second, expertise in this form of advertising is necessary to truly maximize return on investment (ROI). From a consumer perspective, consider treading lightly. Consumers are often overwhelmed by ads, which can lead to ad fatigue and a general distrust of paid content, as noted by our research partner Mintel.
Well, the good news is that you don’t have to metaphorically put all your eggs in one basket. In fact, effective social media strategies often incorporate all three.
Some factors to consider as you weigh your options include:
Choose the combination that best fits your brand’s goals, target audience and budget. The mix you choose today may evolve over time. Continue to experiment and allow your data to guide the refinement and improvement of your strategy.
At Mythic, we specialize in building powerful social media strategies that amplify your brand’s voice and engage your audience authentically. From content creation and community management to paid campaigns and analytics, we deliver impactful social media solutions that drive results.
Ready to elevate your social presence and become an unstoppable force for growth? Reach out to newbiz@mythic.us to get started.
