In 2025, it’s no longer a question of organic vs. paid social. It has to be both.
Organic is pull. Paid is push.
Organic drives awareness. Paid drives conversion.
Organic is a steak dinner. Paid is a proposal.
Organic is listening. Paid is telling
Organic builds. Paid maintains.
Organic delivers LTV. Paid delivers CAC.
So why do so many brands and agencies still separate these two teams?
Let’s shift the focus to why they need to operate in tandem.
Organic Social Rules the World
Organic is where your customers spend their free, and not-so-free, time. And because people are there to be entertained or educated, your content needs to be relatable and shareable to cut through the noise.
But remember: You’re not competing with your category competitors. You’re competing in the attention economy against influencers, viral creators, famous pets, pickleball instructors, Taylor Swift, Zendaya, the Cincinnati Bengals social team, and your cousin’s baby. Every post enters this endless scroll of competition across IG, FB, TikTok, YouTube, and more.
At Curiosity, I constantly challenge our teams to create content that sparks reactions like: “That’s so me.” “This is so you.” *Tags friend.*
Because shares are the ultimate KPI for organic. If your content resonates, it gets shared or saved. If not, it disappears into the void.
Organic Is Your Focus Group of Millions
Organic social gives you real-time consumer feedback. Every comment, question, share, or even the silence of a skipped post teaches you something. It’s the unfiltered voice of your audience. It's where you can experiment with new messaging, content styles, and creative angles.
Keep testing. Keep learning. When something resonates, double down.
When customers engage organically, they’re giving you permission to sell. Often, they’re even asking you to sell. That’s when you turn organic engagement into paid performance.
From Viral Post to Paid Ad
Once you’ve identified high-performing organic content, you boost it. You test how it performs with paid dollars behind it. Then you convert that organic momentum into performance ads.
Just think about it, if you’re a CMO, you are also a social media user and consumer. What do YOU stop scrolling for? Definitely not ads, or anything that looks like an ad. The second you see an ad, you wait the longest 5 seconds of your life to hit “skip”. No one is sharing ads with their friends.
But if content feels organic, if it makes people stop and say “that’s me” – they’ll watch, share, and engage.
At Curiosity, we call this approach Social Studies, and we’ve seen massive results:
- For DUDE Wipes, we increased CTR 15.5 points while CPA decreased 95%.
- For Stop & Shop, we grew reach, engagement, and follower counts exponentially.
The key? A tight relationship between our organic and paid teams, fully aligned on the same strategy, working with the same learnings, and aiming for the same KPIs.
How To Start Integrating Organic + Paid
Here’s what you can do right now to connect your social teams better:
- Unleash your organic team.
Let them create. Let them experiment. Trust them to know the zeitgeist, platform trends, and content styles that stop the scroll. - Cross-pollinate strategy.
Include organic social leaders in higher-level strategy meetings, cross-pollinating with brand campaigns, paid social and media teams, and analytics. Have them compile key takeaways and insights about what messages are resonating to inform the paid and brand teams.
- Share learnings across teams.
Have organic teams report insights to inform paid strategies. Have paid teams share platform tools, vendor partnerships, and audience data with organic. - Convert organic winners into paid drivers.
Use tools like TikTok Shop or third-party vendors like MikMak to build seamless bridges from organic engagement to purchase.
Social First. Always.
Social media shouldn’t be a downstream tactic. It should sit at the center of your marketing strategy. Because when organic and paid work together under one unified content approach, you don’t just build awareness, you create campaigns that move people through the full funnel.
It’s work. It’s testing. It’s tweaking. But when you practice Social Studies, you build smarter campaigns that actually resonate – because your customers will tell you exactly what they want to hear.
