Social networks are fundamental to any digital marketing strategy: they allow you to communicate with your consumers, showcase your products, and become an effective channel for sales or traffic generation to your website.

However, the path to obtaining your expected results is not linear, and when it comes to choosing how to share your content, there are two similar ways: organic and paid social networks. Still, they differ in significant aspects.

Organic Social

Organic social media refers to free content (posts, photos, videos, memes, stories, etc.) that users, including companies and brands, share on their feeds.

As a brand, when you post organically on your account, you can expect the people who see it to be:

• A percentage of your followers (also known as your “organic reach”)
• Followers of your followers (if people choose to share your post)
• People who follow the hashtags you use

Paid Social

Paid social media is a different term for advertising. It happens when brands pay money to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, etc. to get their content shared with specific new audiences who might be interested in their products or services.

They do this by “boosting” organic content or designing unique ads.

Paid posts are the best way for brands to target new audiences on social media and convert them into customers. Brands use paid social media to:

• Increase brand awareness and attract new followers.
• Promote their latest offer, giveaways, event, etc.
• Drive conversions (including e-commerce sales)

Organic vs. paid networks: Which is better?

The key here is balance. There are unique benefits of each method, and ideally, you should take advantage of them and include both channels in your strategy.

By implementing the features of both, you will be able to have: Get new customers and followers while promoting quality content to a targeted audience.

Companies and brands will benefit immensely by implementing these two methods to search for results.