Organic Vs. Paid Media
Organic Vs. Paid Media
What’s The Difference & How To Use Them To Your Advantage
When we’re talking about growing a brand or a business, on social media, the traffic that you get your pages can be separated into two main camps: organic and paid. While they may seem straightforward in terms of what they, the key to success online can be dependent on your understanding of these two forms, the platforms and programs that support them, and how you should leverage each one based on your needs.
Today, your online presence experts here at Adwizar are here to help, by outlining the main things that you need to know about organic and paid media. By the time you're done reading this, you should be equipped with the tools you need to create an effective strategy for your business or brand using both paid and organic tools.
Organic: For A Long Lasting Brand
Just like those organic fruits and veggies at your local grocery store, the words “organic traffic” means the same thing: it’s all natural. What makes organic growth so important for any brand or business is that it builds the strong foundation needed to support you in the long run. The relationship between a brand and a consumer that has found their page or website organically is almost as if it was meant to be; the brand offers something that the consumer was looking for, and has chosen to establish a connection without an outside influence pushing them to do so. It’s these natural connections to people in your target audience that form relationships that are built to last, as long as you continue to give them what they’re looking for.
Beyond having a person that is attached to your brand’s online presence, you also have a person that is invested in the content that you put online. This makes them more likely to provide you with genuine interaction or even share the enjoyment that they find in your brand with others in their personal network. When these actions are genuine, others that come across your brand and see this kind of interaction are going to be more open to you. Wouldn’t you be interested in something that good friend of yours loves? And wouldn’t you be rather get a recommendation for a product or service from a friend that you trust instead of a promoter or advertiser? The answer to those questions is generally yes.
Without organic growth, you are left with an audience that’s built solely through paid sources, which can sustain a business in certain cases, but carries a greater deal of risk due to its lack of strong connections and, in turn, stability.
The Key To An Effective Organic Strategy
When thinking about an effective organic strategy, try to take yourself out of the mindset of being a brand or business, and instead think about the person-to-person interaction. You need to give you audience something or someone to connect to, which is where creating a persona for your brand comes into play. The first thing you need to do is establish what kind of voice you want to your brand to have online, building a persona that your audience can imagine as a real person on the other end that they are interacting and connecting with.
Once you’ve created a persona for your brand, the next step is creating engaging, shareable content on a consistent basis. Engaging your audience is important since it gives them a reason to stay connected with you, with things like entertaining content to discussions in the comments that keep them coming back for more. Shareability is crucial as well, since your goal is to continue to grow as a brand, so having your audience share your content with their personal networks will increase your overall visibility. What constitutes as shareable will depend on your audience, but things that encourage discussion, evoke emotion, highlight something relatable are good, general starting points. As a final point in regards to content, never let yourself go without posting for an extended period of time, since silence is one of the easiest ways to quickly lose a valuable audience.
Paid Media: Boosting Brands To Greater Heights
Advertising is nothing new, but using paid media to grow your brand is a practice that depends on an effective strategy built on the understanding of your audience, and the time that you put into crafting the perfect paid media campaign. Thinking that you can simply pay money to grow your audience is the quickest way to lose that money with nothing really to show for it. Paid media never guarantees growth, but has limitless potential in terms of providing value if you know what you’re doing.
In the cases where brands do see growth with paid advertising, the audience that they are gaining is not typically the same caliber that you would find with organic growth. People drawn in through paid advertisements don’t have that same connection with a brand and aren’t always perfectly within your target audience, so they are less likely to stick around for the long term unless they discover something in your brand they thoroughly enjoy. But don’t get us wrong, paid media is a very effective tool that can help grow your audience rapidly when used correctly.
Key Points For Understanding Paid Media
The first thing you need to do before you start with a paid media strategy is familiarizing yourself with the various platforms available and the capabilities of each. For example, Google Advertising functions as a form of inbound marketing, where people are shown your ads when actively searching keywords related to your brand or offering. Facebook Advertising on the other hand is a form of outbound marketing, where you specify the demographics and interests of your target audience and serve them ads in their content feed. Both are paid media platforms, but have completely different functions. Once you learn what options are available, you can find the systems that best suit the needs of you and your audience.
The second thing you need to know is how to interpret the results of paid media campaigns. Too often, people make the mistake of seeing things like getting followers, purchases, phone calls, and the like as the only valuable result. As a consequence, they abandon their paid media efforts and conclude that they just didn’t work. Taking a page out of the book of being a consumer, you should know what you’re paying for. When looking at the results of a paid media campaign, the most overlooked and underappreciated measurement of success is visibility and awareness. When you think about it, paid media allows you to boost your visibility, getting your brand and content in front of people in your target audience that you may have never reached without it. Also, just because you aren’t gaining followers, purchases, etc. doesn't mean that advertising isn’t working for you. Creating an effective campaign that connects with your audience takes a lot of time, consistent management, and countless adjustments. Seeing paid media as an ongoing process instead of a one-shot, limited time campaign will put you on the path to success.
Get Some Help From The Organic & Paid Media Masters
Creating the perfect combination of organic and paid media campaigns can be a challenging process, so why not get some help from a team online marketing professionals? At Adwizar, we have everything you need to achieve get the most out of your social media campaigns, from account management to consulting and training programs. If you’re interested in working with us, just fill out our consultation form on our home page to see if we would be a good fit. We are the number one company for social media growth, and we look forward to helping your brand achieve success online!
