By Claire McClung, Senior Director, Strategy & Consulting, January Digital
Let’s be honest. At too many organizations, paid and organic social teams are frenemies – and it’s holding brands back.
To maximize impact, paid media and organic social teams need to work together more effectively. With shrinking attention spans, increasing privacy restrictions, and more content than ever competing for engagement, creative is the new targeting.
Breaking through the noise and driving real performance now depends on how well brands create, optimize, and scale content across organic and paid channels. Here are three key ways to build creative efficiencies and improve performance as a unit:
1. Define Primary KPIs and Create a Feedback Loop
Organic and paid social teams have different priorities, but their insights have to be shared to drive the most success. Organic teams focus on engagement and community growth, while paid teams optimize by media objective. The most effective brands establish a shared feedback loop where:
- Organic teams surface top-performing content based on engagement, comments, and shares.
- Paid teams provide performance data on what’s working at every phase of the funnel.
- Both teams develop shared language and understanding on primary channel KPIs and how those align with overall business goals.
This data exchange helps brands quickly adapt creative strategies, ensuring that content resonates across both paid and organic audiences.
2. Leverage Social-First Content at Scale
No one is more in tune with the latest social trends and content than organic social teams. Paid teams are often deeply focused on performance KPIs, which can sometimes make it challenging to brief content that leans more into brand storytelling or social-first creative. Agile social-first content, built for how people use platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube Shorts, consistently outperforms polished creative because it feels more native and relatable.
To capitalize on this, paid teams should collaborate with organic teams by:
- Identify trends and quickly adapt organic content for paid distribution.
- React in real time to cultural moments, brand mentions, and viral trends, using organic insights to inform paid strategies.
- Repurpose organic videos with slight variations (different hooks, text overlays, aspect ratios) to test in paid environments… more on this below.
By testing what’s already working in organic, paid teams can optimize faster and maximize impact. Brands that embrace an agile, test-and-learn approach will produce more content with fewer resources while keeping pace with the speed of social.
3. Optimize Organic Content for Paid Best Practices
Not all organic content will work in a paid setting, but with adjustments, brands can extend its value. Paid social teams should have a creative best-practices lens when evaluating organic assets, ensuring that:
- Text overlays are used strategically to reinforce messaging.
- Editing aligns with platform-recommended durations (e.g., shorter cuts for TikTok, longer for YouTube Shorts).
- Assets are formatted correctly to maximize performance across placements.
By proactively adjusting organic content, brands can increase the volume of paid-ready creative without additional production time, ensuring that their campaigns remain efficient and impactful.
The Business Impact: More Content, Less Effort, Stronger Performance
When organic and paid social teams work together, brands achieve:
- Faster content production by reducing redundant creative requests.
- Higher efficiency by repurposing and optimizing existing assets.
- Improved performance by leveraging platform-native, best-practice creative.
Aligning teams and creative strategies isn’t just about efficiency – it’s about unlocking greater business impact. By analyzing content performance holistically and adapting in real time, brands can make smarter marketing investments that drive long-term growth.
The most productive teams are the ones who are willing to integrate, collaborate, and identify opportunities together. By integrating organic and paid social efforts, brands can scale their impact, adapt to rising platform demands, and transform every interaction into an opportunity – because in today’s digital landscape, seizing attention is how you drive real outcomes.
