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Organic vs Paid Social Media Marketing for B2B Companies

Why is Social Media Marketing Important to your Business?

In the market today, social media has become impossible to ignore. If your company is not taking social media marketing seriously, then you are missing out on a growing pool of potential customers. The main social media platforms for businesses today are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest and LinkedIn. Not every platform is relevant for every type of business. However, it is important to explore each option and decide where your audiences are. If you find a bigger presence on Twitter and LinkedIn, start off there and see what your engagement levels are. There is no one size fits all for social media, so experiment, find out what works best for you brand.

Optimize Content & Build Brand Awareness

  • Measure Reach, Engagement, etc.
  • Test different types of content that will affect other marketing quickly
  • Get your brand name out there through longtail keywords

Understanding Paid vs. Organic Social Media

Organic is free marketing while paid requires a budget to boost your posts. All social media platforms mentioned offer both options.

Pros & Cons of Organic Social Media Marketing

Each decision made on social media comes with advantages and disadvantages. Let’s take a closer look at the pros and cons of both organic and paid social media marketing.

Pros

  1. It’s Free! Mostly: What could be better than free? Organic allows you to spend no money to post your content. However, if you are using a third party social media tool like Hootsuite or Sprout Social you may have to pay a fee for their software.
  2. Organic Content Provides Your Company More Equity Long-Term: Organic content that uses important long-tail keywords will be more beneficial for your company in the long-term.
  3. Builds Trust: People want to talk to people and not have spam come across their feeds. Organic content is portrayed less “spammy” and more human to followers. This will increase the overall trust in your brand.
Cons
  1. You May Not Be Hitting Your Ideal Market Or Persona: Pushing out organic content is great. But, it may not be reaching your persona as effectively as a paid campaign would. When you choose a paid campaign you are able to select demographics such as location, age, gender, interests, etc.
  2. Reaching a Smaller Audience: Even with the use of hashtags your content may not get noticed like paid advertising would.
  3. Organic Following Takes Time: Organic social marketing takes time, you do not have the same time frame of ROI like you do with paid. Organic content and your social presence takes months if not a year to gain traction.

Pros & Cons of Paid Social Media Marketing

 

Pros

  1. You Can Easily Target Your Persona: With paid social media you can set age limits, locations, gender, etc. to ensure you are reaching someone who is more likely to convert into a customer.
  2. Market Insights: Experiment! As mentioned, by using paid media you are reaching your target audience. Find out what they are interested in. Are you blog posts with videos performing better? Use the campaign analytics to determine the type of content and time of day that works best for your persona.
  3. Build Your Brand: At the end of the day you are paying for your brand to get noticed and that’s exactly what is going to happen. You will see an increase of impressions and awareness, your company’s name will get noticed. 

Cons

  1. It’s Not Free: Unfortunately you will need to spend a little bit of money to see an ROI. But don’t worry most platforms will work with your budget no matter how big or small.
  2. Paid Does Not Guarantee Conversions: While paid will get you impressions and additional eyeballs to
    your brand or website that doesn’t necessarily mean you will get conversions. Make sure you have a good conversion strategy once those interested individuals come through the door.
  3. Constant Monitoring: This market can change daily. Just because you think you’ve selected the best content does not mean it will succeed. You want to constantly monitor your campaigns to see what is performing well and what is not. You may need to sub out underperforming ads.

Making the Best Decision for Your Brand

Each brand is different, you may find it better to do paid, organic, or a mix of both. The only way to really find out which is best for your brand is to experiment! Start off with $50 and go from there. Take a close look at the analytics and discover which avenue gives your brand the best ROI. If you find out you are able to reach your persona more efficiently with paid, put aside a budget to reach them. But remember, do not forget about organic on your social accounts! When you go on social media you want to reach your person and even if you have 15,000 followers that doesn’t mean you have 15,000 customers. Don’t focus on vanity metrics, focus on the quality of engagement. Finally, it is okay to look at the competition. See what they are doing and what seems to be working. It doesn’t hurt to take a closer look.

About Snyder Group

Snyder Group is an integrated digital marketing, advertising, and web development agency located in Norwalk, CT. Since 1995, Snyder Group has partnered with a wide variety of clients to execute on marketing that delivers measurable business results. Social Media Marketing leverages social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to connect and interact with your target audience, driving relevant social traffic to convert to contacts and leads.
Sarah Fiorillo
Published: Oct 17, 2019