Social Media Marketing: Foundations to Practice · Foundations of Social Media Marketing
Organic vs Paid Social
Organic reach has declined steadily across major platforms for over a decade. This chapter covers why, and how organic and paid should actually be sequenced together.
Median organic reach for a business Page on Facebook now sits below roughly 2 percent of its follower count, a figure that has declined steadily for over a decade as feeds shifted from chronological display toward algorithmic, interest-based ranking that competes organic content against both friends-and-family posts and an expanding pool of paid and recommended content [2]. This decline is not unique to Facebook; every major platform now ranks content algorithmically rather than showing it chronologically by default, which means an account's follower count guarantees far less reach than it once did.
- Organic reach has declined to below roughly 2% of followers on platforms like Facebook, driven by algorithmic rather than chronological ranking.
- Paid social buys guaranteed placement and precise targeting that declining organic reach can no longer reliably provide.
- Testing content organically before paid amplification reduces the risk of spending budget on creative that doesn't resonate.
- Organic-only approaches remain right for community building and customer service, which depend on authentic ongoing presence, not one-off reach.