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The Pros and Cons of Organic vs. Paid Facebook Marketing

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In the world of social media marketing, Facebook remains king. Yes, even with the massive climb of TikTok over the past several years. With over 2.9 billion active monthly users, Facebook offers a massive audience for businesses to target. That being said, there are two primary approaches to Facebook marketing: organic and paid. Each approach has its own pros and cons, and it’s important to know the differences between the two to know which approach is right for you and your business.

Organic Facebook Marketing

Organic Facebook marketing is what most people think of when they think about Facebook. It refers to the use of free, non-paid tactics to reach your target audience on the platform. Here are some pros and cons of organic Facebook marketing:

Pros:

  1. Cost-effective: This might be the best thing about organic marketing, but it is free. This makes it an attractive option for businesses with a limited marketing budget.
  2. Build brand awareness: Consistent posting of high-quality content on your Facebook page can help your business build brand awareness and establish your business as a thought leader in your industry.
  3. Build Relationships with followers: Organic Facebook marketing easily allows businesses to engage with their followers. Which allows them to build relationships, and foster a sense of community.

Cons:

  1. Limited reach: Due to Facebook’s algorithm, organic content has a limited reach, and there’s no guarantee that your content will be seen by your target audience. Facebook has monetary reasons to show organic content less than paid.
  2. Time-consuming: Creating high-quality content and engaging with followers can take a lot of time, which can be challenging for businesses with limited resources. Luckily, we can take some of that off your hands if you’d like to reach out.
  3. Slow growth: Organic Facebook marketing can take time to produce results. Because of the limited reach, it may take a while to see an increase in followers or engagement.

Paid Facebook Marketing

Paid Facebook Marketing refers to the use of paid advertising to reach your target audience on the platform. Here are some pros and cons of going down the route of paid ads:

Pros:

  1. Increased reach: Where organic marketing struggles to increase its reach, paid Facebook marketing allows businesses to reach a larger audience with detailed targeting options.
  2. Faster results: Because of the more intricate targeting options and larger reach, you can produce much faster results through paid than through organic.
  3. Scalability: Paid Facebook marketing can be scaled up or down depending on the business’s needs and budget.

Cons:

  1. Cost: Paid ads can get expensive, and it may not be the smartest route to go down for businesses with limited budgets.
  2. Ad fatigue: Facebook users are inundated with ads, and some have trained themselves to completely ignore ads, which will make it more difficult to get results.
  3. Limited engagement: While you have an increased reach, paid ads may not foster the same level of engagement or community-building as organic.

Which Approach is Right for Your Business?

The decision of what Facebook marketing approach is right for you is different from business to business, but our professional opinion is that organic marketing should always be on the table, and if budget allows, paid advertising should come soon after.

As we’ve established, organic marketing is great for building brand awareness and creating a community for a very inexpensive cost. This means that the barrier to entry for Facebook marketing is extremely low if you’re starting with organic. But where there are pros, there are also cons, and paid ads can help fill in those gaps.

If you’re ready to get started with organic Facebook marketing, but don’t know if you have the capacity to put out consistent content, we can help. And if you’ve already got a solid organic strategy, but want to get into Facebook ads, you can reach out for a free consultation.