By Daniel Murray

Why has one of the best marketers out there chosen organic growth, over paid social, for own business? Find out what KT McBratney knows.

KT is the Co-Founder and COO at OwnTrail, a platform offering the tools and community you need to fuel and bring together your definition of personal and professional success.

Daniel and marketer-turned-entrepreneur KT, get into conversation on why organic channels give you the ability to talk to your audience, not at them, why organic channels make all channels run better, and how best to approach organic marketing.

And if you’re losing time and money with customers who don’t show up for booked calls, you need Chili Piper. With their cutting edge platform they’re helping companies like Airbnb achieve more demos and calls, prevent call drop-outs and boost conversion rates. Head to www.chilipiper.com/millennials for a demo.

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LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ktmcbratney

Twitter: twitter.com/k_to_the_t

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Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

02:08 The Spider Web of Organic Growth

16:27 How Marketing Has Been Democratized

19:42 The Need to Talk With People, Not At Them

20:10 Why It’s Time to Break Out of Our Boxes

22:17 Sometimes You’ve Just Gotta Work Harder

24:40 Personal Brand Authenticity

31:15 Take a Look At TikTok

33:15 Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?

41:48 If I Can Tell You One Thing

Paid Social Media Vs. Organic Growth

Social media marketing is the premium way businesses connect with their target audience, build brand awareness, and drive website traffic. 

However, it can also be an expensive proposition. Unless your business is equipped with the tools and knowledge to get the most out of social media marketing at the lowest cost, it can be easy to spend a lot of money on this endeavor. 

It’s why many choose to jump straight into paid social, wringing every pound of value out of their hard earned dollar, relegating organic growth strategy to the back of the queue, concerned it’s too slow, too easy to get wrong.

Paid social media vs organic growth doesn’t have to be a choice, each one has its own advantages and disadvantages for your business. But if you had to choose one?

What is Paid Social Media Marketing?

Paid social media marketing uses a combination of paid advertising and social media channels to promote a product, service, or brand. 

Paid social media marketing campaigns are typically split into three categories: –

1. Display advertising (banner ads) – Images placed on social media channels paid for by the advertiser. Banner ads appear in places such as the sidebars of websites, in the feeds of social media channels, and on mobile devices. Banner ads are often used to direct customers to a website or product page. They are also used to build brand awareness by introducing customers to the products or services of a company.
2. Sponsored content – In this type of paid social media strategy, an advertiser pays social media channels to publish sponsored posts on behalf of their product or brand. Sponsored posts are created by the advertiser and then distributed to social media channels. 
3. Social media advertising – This type of paid social media marketing combines paid advertising with social media channels. It includes paid posts, paid click-throughs, and paid interactions. 

Organic Growth Strategies

Organic growth is a marketing strategy that focuses on building brand awareness, attracting new customers, and increasing sales without the use of paid advertising. The objective of an organic growth strategy is to increase website traffic in a cost-effective way, without having to pay to acquire each new visitor. 

Organic social media growth strategies rely on creating content that is engaging and valuable to readers so they are motivated to share it with their friends. This increases the potential for your content to catch on and go viral. Organic growth doesn’t require you to have a large advertising budget, although it does take time and patience to see results. Some of the most effective organic growth strategies include: 

Strategically creating high-quality content: The best way to get more social media traffic for free is to create content that people want to read. Blog posts, infographics, videos, podcasts, and e-books are all great social media marketing tools. 

Optimizing your posts:  Get to know how SEO works and optimize current and previous published content. Update on a regular basis to make the most of your content.

Guest blogging: Use guest blogging to get your company name out there and build relationships with other industry leaders. 

Social media communities: Whether online or in-person, joining social media communities is a great way to interact with your customers and expand your network.

Should You Pay for Social Media or Go Organic?

The short answer is that you should do both. Each strategy should be used in conjunction with the other, and both should be evaluated on a regular basis. This ensures that your marketing efforts are productive and that you are getting the most out of your social media budget.

There are a few factors to keep in mind when deciding between paid and organic growth strategies. First, know your objectives and choose a social media marketing strategy that best fits your goals. Paid advertising is great for driving more traffic to your website and increasing sales. Organic growth strategies are great for building brand awareness and even more importantly, brand affinity.