TikTok Organic System vs. Paid Promotion

Have you been weighing the pros and cons of a TikTok organic system? When should you switch from an organic to a paid growth strategy? 

Let’s explore the advantages of each one and how to create a holistic approach that balances the two.

Organic Growth: Back to Basics

An organic content strategy on social media means growing your reach, following, and engagement through good, old-fashioned, and authentic interactions. You build relationships one post at a time without relying on advertising, sponsored content, or other forms of commercial marketing. 

You create content and use optimization tools to enhance your post’s visibility among audiences whose interests align with yours. You typically reach users who are already following you and gain their engagement. With relevant and properly optimized posts, you may also reach new audiences who may become engaged followers. 

On TikTok, here are examples of organic social media activities that contribute to growth:

• Sharing videos or Stories or creating LIVE content regularly without boosting them. 
• Relying on your understanding of your target audience when you create content that’s relevant to their interests. 
• Creating videos based on trends to broaden your audience reach. 
• Use hashtags and keywords to optimize your posts for maximum, targeted reach.
• If you’re a business with employees, they may also share your TikTok page’s content via their personal networks. 
• Whether you have a personal or business account, your followers may also repost your content. 
• Reacting and responding to comments on your posts and direct messages (DMs). 
• Sharing user-generated content (UGC) that helps promote your page/brand/product/service with no monetary incentives. 

It takes time and a lot of experimentation to develop an organic strategy that delivers your desired results. Once you have it figured out, your organic content can consistently reach the following groups of people:

• A good percentage of your followers. 
• Your followers’ followers, if they repost your content. 
• People who follow or search for the hashtags/keywords you use in your posts. 
• Users whose content preferences match what you offer, with the help of TikTok’s recommendation algorithm. 

Non-Organic Options: Paying Your Way To Growth

Paid social media uses paid options, such as advertising and incentivized collaborations, to promote content and reach more users.

You can target a specific audience through paid social media to achieve a specific goal. Unlike organic optimization, paid targeting lets you handpick your preferred demographic or market. This gives you better odds of getting the results you want. 

On TikTok, paid content may take the form of any of the following:

• Boosted organic posts via TikTok’s Promote tool. 
• Ad campaigns or sponsored content. 
• Shoppable ads. 
• Branded collaborations, such as influencer marketing. 

Paid promotion goals include:

• Increasing brand/product visibility and awareness. 
• Driving website traffic. 
• Generating leads. 
• Boosting sales. 
• Attracting new followers. 
• Promoting a new product, service, or event. 
• Generating more sign-ups, app downloads, survey feedback, etc. 

Organic vs. Paid Social Media

So, which one is better: an organic strategy or paid promotion? Here’s a rundown of the pros and cons of each growth option. 

What Are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Organic Growth?

An organic strategy seems straightforward enough. It’s the foundation on which creators and brands build their presence and successes. But it’s not always as easy as it sounds. Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of using an organic system exclusively. 

Pros:

• It won’t cost you a thing. You can create as much original content as you want for free. You’ll have to invest only your time and creative efforts. 
• It builds trust. Especially on TikTok, users equate organic content with authenticity. In real life and on social media, you can only build trust through authentic interactions. Sharing organic content is one of the best ways to show people your true identity and communicate with them authentically.
• It’s a sustainable strategy. Creating organic content is free and a fairly straightforward process. You don’t need to worry about budgeting or paying for the services of a marketing specialist. You can sustain your strategy with nothing but the basics: a device, an internet connection, and your creativity.

Cons:

• Organic posts get minimal exposure. Most social media platforms use ranking algorithms, which give organic posts a low ranking on feeds. These algorithms typically only show organic content to a tiny percentage of a page’s follower base. 
• The results are inconsistent. Some posts may deliver tons of views, follows, and engagement, while others completely flop. You may be able to replicate your desired results once you figure out what works. However, quickly evolving trends and user interests mean you have to adapt and recalibrate your strategy constantly to maintain good numbers. 
• Growth is slow. Developing an effective organic strategy that delivers consistent growth takes a lot of time, effort, and experimentation.

What Are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Paid Promotion?

When should you pay to promote your content? Is it a good idea to rely on paid social media exclusively? Here are the pros and cons of paid promotion. 

Pros:

• You can leverage advanced targeting to get the best results. Paid promotion on social media facilitates distinct, granular targeting for any market size. You can guarantee higher conversions by targeting audiences most likely to take the action you want. For example, you can specify an age bracket, location, and niche when identifying your target audience. 
• It delivers a clear return on investment (ROI). You can easily keep track of how much you’re spending for every impression, click, or sale. This makes it easier for you to identify which promotion strategies give you the highest returns and which ones need further optimization. 
• Your data is easy to track. Paid promotion on social media comes with advanced and reliable analytics. You’ll always get accurate numbers and be able to derive in-depth insights into your campaign’s performance. 

Cons:

• You need an ad budget. Obviously, you’ll need to invest money to promote your content. Advertising on social media is fairly affordable. On TikTok, the minimum ad spend for a campaign is $50, for example. However, the size of your budget often limits how much you can achieve from your ad, especially if you have limited resources. 
• You only get short-term benefits. More often than not, your gains are limited to the duration of your paid promotion. Unless you run ads regularly, you’ll eventually go back to generating fluctuating or low-performance numbers.
• Many users don’t like ads. Most find paid content unreliable or even annoying and scroll right through. Because of personalized targeting, many users also feel that advertisers and social media platforms often become too intrusive. 

What Is an AI-Powered TikTok Organic System?

The pay-to-play model makes competition fiercer every day, with platforms reaching their saturation points in terms of number of users and posts. 

However, organic growth remains the gold standard on social media because it always delivers genuinely interested and highly engaged followers. 

TikTok may be the exception to the rule, however. You have the best odds of reaching your followers with an organic post on TikTok than other platforms. TikTok’s recommendation algorithm does a better job of prioritizing user interests when delivering content to their feeds. It ranks content based on whether or not a user will like it. 

This means creative content is the major driving force for growth on the platform. Recently, TikTok launched its newest AI-powered creative solution, TikTok Symphony. This new innovation uses generative AI to assist with and simplify the content creation process. 

Regular users, content creators, and brands can use TikTok Symphony to create scripts, produce video content, optimize assets, and more. More specifically, users can access Symphony Assistant for AI-powered, creative collaborations. 

You’ll have a personal AI assistant to help you brainstorm ideas, find inspiration, identify trends, deliver recommendations, and implement best practices. 

With TikTok Symphony, you can elevate your organic strategy with the help of generative AI. Using Symphony is easy. Just start with a simple prompt, such as: 

• “I’m a beginner on TikTok. What best practices should I know to create my first video?”
• “Show me what’s trending in beauty today?”
• “I need content ideas for my brand [brand name] to promote [describe product].”
• “Write an ad script for my [industry] brand [brand name] to highlight the benefits of my product [product name]. The benefits are [list benefits], and my target audience is [describe target audience].”

If you’re ready to create video assets using Symphony, head over to Symphony Creative Studio now!

Combine Organic and Paid Solutions to Grow Your Brand on TikTok

A hybrid strategy, combining organic and paid solutions, is the best option to stay competitive and ensure sustained growth on TikTok. A strong hybrid strategy involves a calculated balancing act that offsets both solutions’ advantages. 

For example, if you have a top-performing organic post, boost it through advertising to put it in front of more viewers. 

Tapping into influencer marketing is another way to enjoy the combined benefits of organic and sponsored content. For example, you can pay an influencer or creator to produce content for you. And then, you can repost it and tag the influencer/creator without boosting it further. 

You can also leverage brand advocates to promote your content. Encourage your employees to share your page’s posts or followers to share user-generated content (UGC) featuring your brand. 

A TikTok organic system paired with paid social media will give you the biggest growth advantage you can ask for. If you’re looking for an alternative and reliable paid solution, sign up for a High Social plan! 

High Social offers an advanced, proprietary AI targeting solution to help you accelerate your growth and drive higher conversions. 

Start growing your TikTok today!

Is Organic Content Better Than Paid Social Media? Frequently Asked Questions

Are you team organic content or team paid promotion? You must look at the pros and cons against what you want to achieve through your post. Here are a few more FAQ to help you identify the best strategy for your needs.