The social media landscape is constantly changing, so your strategy should be changing right alongside it. But when setting out to create a social media strategy, you need to consider both the paid and organic sides. Not everything that works for organic social media will work for paid, and vice versa. By knowing when to use one or the other (or better yet, mastering both) you’re more likely to accomplish your goals.
To talk more about creating paid and organic social strategies, we enlisted Brady Josephson, VP of Marketing & Growth at charity: water for our latest webinar. Brady provided interesting insights about the nonprofit’s approach to social media across different channels, which helps it bring safe and clean drinking water to everyone on the planet. In this post, we’ll summarize some of the key takeaways from our discussion with Brady.
Building a social media strategy
Whether you’re crafting a strategy from scratch or undertaking a refresh, social media strategies don’t magically come together overnight. Doing it right takes careful planning, a clear vision of your goals, and an understanding of your audience.
Understanding the differences between paid and organic social
Brady is a strong advocate for building a paid and social strategy together, noting that the lines between organic content and advertisements have become blurred. At charity: water, they put their organic and paid social media strategies into two different “buckets” based on their goals. One bucket is for creating future demand with organic social through brand awareness (top of funnel), and another bucket is for capturing current demand through paid social ads.
Brady credits charity: water’s success in developing its social media strategy as a result of being “ruthless” in defining their audience and objectives. Though it might sound basic, it’s paramount to get those two variables right before you build out the rest of your strategy.
Examples of paid vs organic campaigns
One charity: water’s successful Instagram campaigns from the paid bucket was “A.I. Can’t Fix This.” The 15-second spot centers around a woman collecting water at a stream, using AI to change the backgrounds. It tells a story and creates a sense of urgency using eye-catching visuals, and ends with a direct solicitation to donate.
Charity: water’s “68 Million Reasons to Celebrate” campaign is an example from the organic bucket. The 60-second spot generates awareness about the organization by celebrating a milestone of success. It never actually asks for a donation, rather, it showcases the results of the work they’re doing like a mini-documentary. The video is anchored by a direct-to-camera interview with its head of monitoring and evaluation. As the footage plays, his voiceover explains the charity’s ongoing mission.
Both campaigns ultimately serve the same purpose: advancing charity: water’s mission to bring clean water to everyone on Earth. But their approach, style, and length couldn’t be more different. It’s a great example of how using paid and organic social in tandem creates more touchpoints for generating demand.
Best practices for your organic social strategy
When it comes to creating organic social content, Brady warns that focusing too much on the channel will make your content suffer. You shouldn’t be creating a TikTok just to jump on a trend. Creating compelling content should always be the primary goal of your social media strategy. To illustrate that point, Brady tweaked a famous quote from legendary ad man Howard Gossage for the modern era: “People watch what interests them. Sometimes, those are ads.”
To Brady’s point, if a brand or organization puts out a well-crafted and interesting piece of content, people will watch – even if it happens to also be an ad. Some ads making the rounds on social media in recent years have been more like miniature movies than traditional advertisements. They’re sometimes touching, others are humorous, but they all tell a story. They’re also usually at least a couple of minutes long, which is a lifetime on a platform like TikTok that favors short-form content.
Storytelling is a powerful way to connect with your audience on an emotional level. But if you want your audience to click and share your content in today’s world, it should be accessible and participatory. Making your content look too polished could have the reverse effect and make audiences feel disconnected. “The more buttoned-up and corporate something feels, especially today, it’s not as compelling or engaging,” Brady shared. As a bonus, not only will you get a lot more bang for your buck with less-polished content, but it’s also easier to produce.
Last, but not least, don’t ignore user feedback when it comes to organic social. Soft data like comments can be an invaluable learning resource that helps you refine your social media strategy. So pay attention to them, and be sure to share any useful nuggets with your team.
Insights on current social trends
Although he hesitated making any outright predictions about the social media landscape in the year ahead, Brady did offer some insights. For starters, the TikTok-ification of all things social will continue apace. This means more simpler, lower-fidelity videos with a person directly addressing the camera. This spot from charity: water, “Tarik & Tyler”, is a great example of lo-fi content that’s simple to create.
It’s also an election year, which means a frenzied environment across social media channels. The huge expected uptick in postings and content means getting your message out there will be tougher than usual. But Brady suggests even apolitical creators or brands can lean into it to try and be a voice in the conversation.
Lean into testing and experimenting with social
Social media trends come and go like the wind. But since Lo-Fi content is hot right, use it as a way to experiment with new ideas and trial new types of content. Of course, you should always be testing and iterating throughout these trial runs to learn what resonates with your audience most. Watch the full webinar for the rest of Brady’s insights about creating and honing a social media strategy in 2024.
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