Mastering Social Media Strategy: Insights for World Social Media Day

Organic Vs Paid Social Media

There’s a big difference when it comes to organic and paid social media. Firstly, it’s important not to think of any social media as ‘free’. Social media is now very much a ’pay to play’ channel for businesses. But that doesn’t mean you need big budgets to get the results you’re looking for.

There are three key ways we distinguish social media activity; organic, paid and boosting.

Organic social media is any activity that you can manage through the front end of platforms like Facebook and TikTok. This includes posting to the account, replying to comments and messages, as well as managing your business profiles.  

By comparison, paid social media refers to any activity managed through separate platforms with paid objectives in mind. It could be Ads Manager (Meta) and TikTok Ads. It also includes managing media buying campaigns, audience targeting and ad assets.

As seen in the diagram above, there is an overlap between the two that includes ‘boosting’, which involves allocating a specific budget to selected organic posts to extend the reach and visibility of the organic content.

Finding the balance between paid and organic can be difficult, think about your resource and budget. Starting with organic and testing some boosting budget can be a good place to start. If you haven’t tried paid social ads before we recommend getting some external help as it’s important to set your campaigns up correctly to ensure you maximise your budget at achieve desired results.

Knowing what type of social activity you’ll be carrying out is important as it will enable you to serve relevant information in the right format at the right time. At Zeal we’re always thinking about the overall marketing funnel in order to decide what social activity should take place.

Social Media & The Marketing Funnel

The marketing funnel is a key element that you need to consider when planning your social media strategy.

Different actions on social media support users at phases of their buying journey. For example, organic social plays a key part in brand awareness, building a community of loyal users who speak highly of your brand.

But it can be challenging to generate brand awareness through organic posts alone, as platforms often impose limitations on the visibility of business-related content. Organic social still has a place for building loyalty, delivering customer service and speaking directly to potential customers. For many brands organic social media is a key trust signal providing a clear and authentic way for customers to see your brands proof of concept and values.

Using the marketing funnel to inform your social strategy is a good starting point when deciding how to choose platforms and the metrics you’ll use to measure success.

Utilising the marketing funnel to inform elements of your social strategy is a good starting point when deciding how to use social media platforms and the results you to measure.

Planning Organic Social Media Content

Looking to start posting more strategically on social media? These four tips are the best place to start:

• Content Themes – think about the key themes/topics your business could/should communicate. This could be product features, brand ethos/values, blog sharing, customer reviews, etc. Which ever themes you decide should align with your audience and the type of content they would want to see.
  Stuck for content ideas? It’s not too late to download our 2023 Key Dates Calendar. Get the FREE download here!
• Media Planner – Consistency is key on social media and planning content ahead of time is the best way to ensure it. We recommend setting up a media planner containing dates and content themes to support the process of creating content.
• Scheduling Tools – After you’ve created the content in your media planner, use a scheduling tool to make posting automated. This way you can schedule posts in bulk. Many platforms have built-in scheduling such as Instagram and Facebook (through Meta Business Suite) or directly on LinkedIn.
• Reporting – When you invest time and effort into creating posts, it’s crucial to monitor their performance to refine and evolve your strategy. Depending on your business goals, the KPIs you measure will vary.

To help you identify relevant metrics, refer to the table below for some ideas.

Final thoughts

Social media is a great marketing tool when used strategically. If you’re hoping to level up your online presence it’s important to know what the objective is, set realistic expectations and plan the actions you’ll be taking in order to get there. 

Need a helping hand with your social media strategy? Get in touch to discuss how we can help you accelerate growth and get more from your social.