It depends on what you want to accomplish.
Both ways of using social media are beneficial for different reasons. Personally, I think a blend of both strategies is important and can be customized according to industry and goals.
However, if you are honing in on one specific objective, there is one clear strategy.
Strategy #1: Building your community and brand.
Organic social media tactics are perfect for this objective.
What you shouldn’t do.
You should never run your social media pages like one big advertisement. If you’re only posting about your offer, you’re limiting your opportunity to interact and build relationships with your following.
Yes, your post should represent your business, but the social media experience is a unique opportunity for customers to receive value that builds trust. And where there is value and trust, there is more willingness to buy and refer.
Also, different platforms call for different types of content. Don’t treat them all the same. Instead, play to the audiences, expectations, and capabilities of each social media platform for the best results.
What you should do.
Continue to build trust through authentic and valuable content. Your followers should look forward to your posts… And for good reason!
If you have an effective social media content strategy, your posts will be well rounded and purposeful–never boring or off brand.
Strategy #2: Increasing leads and sales.
Paid social media tactics are the most effective ways to accomplish this result.
What you shouldn’t do.
Boost posts and expect sales. Boosting posts might help increase your reach to new viewers, but it isn’t going to help you convert–yet.
The only time we recommend boosting a post is to create an audience set that will likely interact with an ad on the same topic as the boosted post. This ad strategy is great for less guessing (and less money spent) while honing in on the most profitable audiences for your offer.
What you should do.
Have a strategy! There are 100 ways to advertise an offer. There are direct purchase ads, list building ads, warming-up-cold-leads ads, and many more depending on the goal.
There is no one size fits all, but there is a tried-and-true overarching strategy you should consider for your own paid social media advertising:
First, the initial tactics of your ad strategy will likely start with baby steps in eventual progression toward achieving your long term goal. Even if you are not achieving initial sales, you are creating a base for long term success. Over time of growing your email list, nurturing leads, offering unparalleled value, and staying top of mind, your audience will become more and more likely to turn into profitable customers.
Your return on investment.
It’s worth mentioning that while your return on investment is an important factor to consider, some of the “return” might not fully manifest until further down the road.
One way to (sort of) quantify your return on investment presently is to determine how much a single customer brings monetarily on average. Consider their likelihood to repeat a product/service purchase, refer another customer, etc. Then consider how much it cost to achieve a new customer through social media ads. The difference is your ROI… and it’s awesome!
When done right, spending a little money up front to get in front of the right audience so that you can make more later is always well worth the initial investment to grow your business.
