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There’s a harmful idea that’s been circulated around for some time that organic and paid social marketing somehow exist in opposition to one another. "They do not, nor should they," explains Matchnode co-founder Chris Madden. He adds, "In actuality, they are two sides of the same coin. One feeds into the other, and an effective social strategy will see your brand leveraging both - organic for your initial reach, then paid to extend that reach beyond what you thought possible."
 

Organic, they said, is dead, and Facebook killed it. The only way to generate buzz and awareness on social media is through paid ads and sponsored posts.

By now, you’re no doubt painfully aware that Facebook’s been making a series of algorithm changes over the past several years that aren’t exactly great for business. The most egregious of these took place in 2018, when the social networking corporation officially announced that it’s shifting to focus more on connections between people than connections between brands. Cue tons of business users panicking as their organic reach plummeted.

It’s now been a full year - an age in the digital realm - and organic social marketing is every bit as important as it ever was.

And the tactics that necessary to succeed haven’t changed as much as you might expect.

See, the brands that were engaging with their audiences the right way on Facebook didn’t actually see their reach decline by that much. These businesses share content that’s interesting, relevant, and entertaining to their audience. They create stuff that people want to talk about, engage with, and share with friends and family.

The majority of that content is non-promotional. It’s intended to educate, entertain, or intrigue, and that’s it. Sure, there may be the occasional call to action, the occasional sale or giveaway. But there’s a balance, and it’s skewed entirely in favor of non-sales content.

The brands that successfully leverage Facebook - and honestly, any social platform - understand that balance.  They treat social networks as a community management platform rather than an ad platform, and it shows. Moreover, they understand that the best route to social marketing success is an approach that blends paid and organic content.  

See, the notion that you have to choose one or the other - paid or organic - is false. They’re two sides of the same coin. The former is, at the end of the day, a means of extending the reach of the latter as much as it is a means of generating sales. 

“You absolutely need an effective social strategy if you ever want to succeed with ads,” reads a post on social management platform Sproutsocial’s blog. “For the sake of maximizing your reach while keeping your budget in check, a hybrid paid and organic social media strategy provides brands with the best of both worlds...promos should mostly be confined to running ads.” 

Paid social marketing takes several forms, and can be used to advertise everything from content on your blog to social posts you’ve created. 

• Promoted posts. These can be used to serve content to highly-targeted audience members who you’re certain will find the content relevant. Promoted content could take the form of a Reddit post, a video, or a suggested product.

• Sidebar ads. These are usually a bit more advertising-oriented, and should likely be limited to pages for which there’s a direct call to action or conversion goal. 

• Video ads. These are served on platforms like YouTube. 

In the future, organic reach on social networks might decline further, as explained by Adweek. But at least for now, blending meaningful content with paid content is the surest way to succeed on any social platform, Facebook included. 

Oh, one last thing? Create high-quality videos. They receive a ton of engagement on Facebook, and across other platforms as well.