It’s fair to say that TikTok is no longer a secret. Nearly every reputable brand has turned to TikTok marketing in some sense by now, and there are also millions of small businesses doing the same. Not to mention the abundance of creators growing a personal brand via TikTok. But what a lot of brands are still struggling with is choosing between organic, paid, or both.
In this article, we’ll highlight the pros of each while also covering why combining the two may provide businesses with the best of both worlds.
TikTok Marketing: Organic vs Paid
First of all, it’s important to understand what we mean by organic and paid when it comes to social media marketing. The difference is quite simple: paid refers to social media advertisements, while organic relates to free social media posts.
Pros of Organic TikTok
The most obvious advantage of implementing an organic TikTok strategy is the cost, or the lack of it. It’s completely free to open a TikTok account and start uploading videos, whether you are a business or creator. However, if you are creating organic TikTok videos as a business, remember to factor in the cost of labour as well as the time cost. For this reason, many small businesses are turning to organic TikTok rather than paid.
TikTok’s average user is younger than the average user of other social platforms, and this may impact your decision on whether to create organic videos or paid ads. Younger users, particularly those under the age of 30, have grown up in a tech-centred world. They’re savvy when it comes to anything digital, and spotting an ad is second nature to them, meaning social media ads are less powerful when put in front of this demographic. Organic content on the other hand is more trusted, more authentic, and viewed as more genuine by these users. So despite organic being cheaper, it may also be more impactful.
The unique selling point of TikTok compared to other platforms is its algorithm. The TikTok platform serves up content based on the user’s interests and past engagement, whereas platforms like Instagram prioritise content from accounts that a user follows. As a result, organic content can have a longer shelf life on TikTok, as short-form videos make their way to different users at different times.
This new form of algorithm also means that content can go viral overnight. While this can be achieved on other platforms, it often requires payment to go big in a short space of time. On TikTok, the right strategy can catapult your organic video to the feeds of millions of users in an instant.
Pros of Paid TikTok
The number one reason for using paid ads on any social platform is instant reach. Whether we’re talking about advertising on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, or elsewhere, paid social allows you to bypass the time-consuming process of building up a loyal following.
Paid TikTok content can also be targeted in its delivery. TikTok’s algorithm means that it’s out of your control who sees your organic content, although the algorithm is generally very good at putting the right content in front of the right people. Ads give you more control however, and allow you to target users based on age, gender, location, spending power and so on. For brands that are targeting a specific age group or income level, TikTok ads are extremely beneficial in this regard.
For bigger brands, data often drives decisions, and this could be another reason to choose paid TikTok ads over organic videos. Running ads makes it easier to track metrics such as click-through rate, conversion rate, and return on investment, which can all be viewed in the TikTok Ads Manager dashboard.
Best Practice: A Hybrid Approach
It doesn’t have to be a choice between organic and paid, and the best approach may be to combine both; there are a few reasons for this.
Firstly, if a brand chooses to run ads to avoid the commitment of building up an organic following, the lack of followers or content may impact sales. Users may still study the account behind the ads, and no videos can often mean no trust.
Organic content can also be used as the starting point for your ads. As organic doesn’t have an upfront cost, businesses can view organic as somewhat of a risk-free testing zone to determine what works best in terms of performance. Once they have this data, the best-performing content can be turned into paid ads to increase its reach.
Businesses will likely also find that users who come through organic content differ greatly from those who come through paid. A hybrid approach allows a business to capture all users. In general, those who engage with organic content have probably purchased from the business before, whereas paid content can be used to get the attention of unaware or top-of-funnel users.
If you’re unsure what TikTok strategy would work best for your brand, it may be better to seek the guidance of a TikTok marketing agency instead of going it alone. While this is costlier in terms of the short term, it can be more profitable in the long run.