Social Media is King

Social media is one of the most powerful tools for marketing that this world has ever seen. With millions of users logging on and spending hours scrolling every day on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, there are endless opportunities to get your brand and message out there.

One popular way to take advantage of this is “organic growth” or making regular posts to grow your audience and gain followers. Another avenue for business growth is using the advertising tools provided on social media to run paid ads. This blog will cover some pros and cons of each and explain why paid ads could be the right fit for your business.

Viral but at What Cost?

The first issue with organic growth is the algorithm. This mysterious system determines the success and reach of any post on social media. While it is possible to play to the algorithm with strategic posts, it will always prioritize usership over your business. For example, posting every day and interacting with other accounts will make your posts more successful, but this only exists because the platforms want people using their app so they incentivize it in this way. Paid ads do not have this same issue. While there is still an algorithm, it can be affected directly by the various settings and options in the ad tool. This makes reach and impressions far more reliable.

Time is Money

The next problem is how time-consuming organic growth really is. As stated before, usership is incentivized by the algorithm, so you’ll have to post every day and comment on others’ posts to really grow your following. Creating content and interacting every single day becomes very time consuming and can bring your attention away from your business. With paid ads, you can run the same content for weeks and it will consistently reach people as they scroll.

Keep Your Goals in Mind

This highlights the biggest issue with organic growth which is the purpose and intention behind it. Posting content and interacting ultimately grows the following of your page. While a larger following does increase the number of people seeing your post, thus increasing the potential for leads, it will be the same people viewing your content over and over again. With paid ads, your content will be distributed to the audience that is most likely to fulfill your goal. For example, running a lead ad campaign will make it a near certainty that new users will see and click on your posts. Another major advantage of paid ads is the insight that you can get into performance. On social media platforms, you can see some performance metrics, but with a real advertising tool, you can see a full breakdown of performance with numerous demographics and metrics included.

What's Right for You?

Up to this point it may seem like real advertising heavily outclasses organic growth so why isn’t everyone doing it? Well first off, it costs money. This sets a barrier for many small businesses who do not necessarily have a real marketing budget yet. While some ads are cheaper than others, they do all cost money at the end of the day. Posting on social media is free so many opt for this route. Secondly, ad tools like Facebook Ads Manager can be a little complicated and especially daunting at first. This is a small barrier that can be overcome easily with some technical know-how. Next, running ads to promote an event or with the goal of website views can be very simple and straightforward. However, to take advantage of leads gained through ads, you might need additional resources such as a landing page and CRM software (See our blog on CRM).

Final Remarks

In conclusion, what should you do as a small business owner; post on social media all day every day or pay for some ads? There’s no easy answer, but in short, it depends on your goals and capacity. If you’re looking for a free option to build your brand and have a chance of going viral, social media could be the right choice for you. Just recognize that to please the algorithm you might have to devote a lot of time to this endeavor. If you’re looking for a more hands-off system that can return consistent leads at the cost of some dollars and cents, maybe running real paid ads is the marketing option for you. However, we always recommend that you have social media for your business and post regularly even if you’re also paying for ads (See our blog on Branding).