There are two ways to achieve social media growth. 

One way is through organic methods and the other is through paid advertising and services.  Personally, I am in favor of using both.  As with every choice we need to make as business owners, there are always pros and cons.  What I hope to do in this article is make a complicated decision more simple by giving you both the advantages and disadvantages of organic and paid social media growth.

But first, let’s talk about why social media growth should be part of your overall marketing plan.  PoorManBlogger.com identifies five great reasons businesses need to focus on social media marketing:

1. Social media drives relevant traffic to your website.
2. It improves your reach.
3. Helps you with branding awareness.
4. Betters your search engine optimization.
5. Helps you with customer engagement.

Bottom line, social media growth is important for increasing your leads and growing your business.

Before we dive into the pros and cons of organic vs. paid social media growth, let’s define what they both mean.  Organic social media is any piece of social media (posts, blogs, videos, etc.) that have no money behind them.  You are relying completely on the search engines and social media platforms to display your content.  Paid social media is just the opposite.  You are using paid advertising dollars or a paid growth service to drive traffic to your content/platform/website.

Advantages of Organic Growth

• It’s free (if you DIY) – if you have the knowledge and time, you can set up social media profiles, create social posts, and post them all for free.
• Build engaging followers – social media enables you to build relationships with new people and create a consistent brand that is easily recognizable.
• Gives you valuable feedback – By paying attention to the conversations and metrics, you can gain important information about your prospects’ likes, dislikes, pain points, and needs.

Disadvantages of Organic Growth

• It’s a long-game – with organic social media methods, you will not build a following quickly.  It will take time and patience to attract your ideal tribe of engaged followers.
• It’s time-consuming – for organic social media growth to work, you must be consistent and post often on your social profiles.  
• It can be frustrating – there are so many social media algorithms at play in the background and the rules of social media change so often.  It can be frustrating to deal with all of this.

Advantages of Paid Growth

• It’s much faster – through paid advertising or paid services that bring you new followers, social media growth is much faster than organic growth methods.
• Allows for targeting – paid advertising enables you to target a specific group of people based on certain demographics and interests.
• Great for increasing conversions – I love paid advertising to drive traffic to landing pages that increase conversions on lead magnets and offerings.

Disadvantages of Paid Growth

• It’s expensive – if you don’t have a big budget for social media growth, paid growth is not the way to go.  You can spend on average $1-5 per lead.
• It is short-lived – once you stop the paid advertising or service, the leads dry up.
• It’s tricky and complex – paid advertising and paid services require you to constantly monitor the leads that are being generated.  It doesn’t always produce what you want and then you have to change course and try something new.

So this is what I tell my clients.  If you can afford it, use both organic and paid social media growth strategies.  Start with organic growth by getting your social media strategy in place and consistently running smoothly.  Then very strategically, introduce paid social media growth strategies.  Use ads to drive traffic to your lead magnets.  Use paid advertising when you are launching a new product or program.  Don’t waste your money if you do not have a very specific goal you are trying to achieve.  Whatever you choose to do, make social media marketing an active part of your overall marketing plan.

Lori Young is the founder of Amazing OBM, a boutique content marketing agency serving heart-centered entrepreneurs.  If you are a coach, healer, spiritual entrepreneur, or personal transformation expert, we’d love to help you rock your marketing efforts.  To learn more about us, visit our website at www.amazingobm.com.