The Down Low on Social

What is the difference between organic reach and paid reach on social media? Let’s have a look!

Organic Reach on Social Media

Basically, this is the unpaid portion of posts on social media. They are often updates about businesses, friends, or your weekend adventures. These posts are “organic” because their distribution is not forced and in turn, only people who like the person/page will see the post unless it is shared or liked. In this case it can be shown to the friends of people who took action on the post.

As you can imagine, this can be a small number. Take a look at how many people follow your company page. You might have 200 followers composed of staff and customers and on average, the organic reach of a post is 6% of your followers (and can be as low as 2%!). This means that organic posts are not always the most efficient way to reach your customers and definitely not to reach people outside of your following.

Enter sponsored posts.

Paid Social Media Advertising

Although they appear similar, paid posts are sponsored to appear in the timeline of targeted social media-goers. Targeting can be based on basic demographics as well as lifestyle, all to show your paid ad to more relevant customers based on their online habits.

Paid social media ads come in many types, including video, image, text, carousel, slideshow, event, canvas and even shopping ads! They are always updating the types of posts to give a lot of variety to pages, all to appeal to certain consumers. If done correctly, with proper posts and content, you should see a perk up in your online social media presence.