Is social media heading toward pay-to-play?
More creators are boosting posts, organic reach is shrinking, and the algorithm feels harder to work with than ever.
But does that actually mean you have to pay just to be seen? Or is the situation being misunderstood?
That’s what this post breaks down.
You’ll also find the one thing you need to focus on towards the end.
Let’s get into it.
What is paid social media?
Paid social media is a method to increase organic reach by boosting individual social media posts.
It’s a technique social media creators and brands alike can use to try and beat the algorithm by paying to have their content reach more users on social media.
“Reach” is a metric that measures the number of social media users who had your post in their feed when they browsed social media. It essentially tells you the number of users who had the potential to engage with your post.
There are two types of reach: organic reach and paid reach.
Organic reach refers to reach that comes from the algorithm naturally. Paid reach refers to reach you paid to acquire.
What are the differences between organic and paid reach?
Organic reach and paid reach are similar in that they both refer to methods that are designed to help you reach more users on social media. At the same time, each one plays a different role in how you approach marketing.
Targeted marketing
With organic reach, you make posts about topics related to your niche in an attempt to find your target audience on a particular social media platform.
By making videos about topics your target audience cares about and by using keywords related to those topics in captions and text overlays, you send signals to that platform’s algorithm that lets them know that your videos are relevant to users who have expressed interest in those topics.
With paid reach, you pay to reach a specific audience.
When you boost a post, most platforms allow you to choose different parameters that control who the post is shown to. Possible parameters usually include age demographics, genders and specific topics.
The idea is that by choosing your parameters, you not only increase your reach overall, you also increase it among users who are most likely to buy your products.
Expanding reach
With organic reach, you trust the algorithm to show your post to users who have shown interest in the topic your post is about.
Even so, social media users still need to interact with your post and every other post you publish in order for the algorithm to pick up on your video and begin showing it in feeds.
If your growth and engagement rates are low, your reach will be as well.
With paid reach, you pay to guarantee that your post will be shown to part of your target audience.
Campaigns
Most social media platforms allow you to view analytics for individual posts, but for the most part, you’ll need to monitor and record data for campaigns on your own.
This is where paid reach has the upper hand.
When you boost a post, you create a campaign within the platform’s advertising section. That campaign usually includes specific analytics for engagement metrics related to your post.
You can then use these metrics to optimize your campaign while it’s live.
Building loyalty
Unfortunately, social media users are growing tired of ads.
This is especially true given the fact that TikTok Shop has turned the platform into a hub for infomercials.
For this reason, it may be better to stick with organic reach.
Trust between you and your audience is very important. Being relatable and personable can do a lot to build trust, but a giant “sponsored” label can really turn users off and only cause them to scroll as quickly as possible.
Plus, if you boost too many posts that don’t do well, you’ll see a drop in your overall engagement rate, which will only make it harder for you to build relationships with brands and potential sponsors.
Which platforms allow you to boost posts?
- TikTok
- YouTube
- Twitter (X)
You need to convert your Instagram account into a business account if you want to boost posts.
Then, you can go to your profile, tap the post you want to boost, and tap Boost to set up a campaign.
This is how it’s done on Facebook as well. You go to your page, find the post you want to boost, then tap Boost.
Personal accounts and business accounts alike can boost posts on TikTok. Government and political accounts aren’t allowed to.
TikTok’s help docs also state that your post must use an original sound or a sound that can be used for commercial purposes.
You can boost a post or a live. To boost a post, find it, tap the More options, and use the Promote button to set up your campaign.
In YouTube, you can set up simple promotion campaigns in YouTube Studio or more advanced campaigns in the YouTube Ads section of Google Ads.
On Twitter, visit your profile, find the post you want to promote, tap the post activity icon, then tap Promote.
Finally, Pinterest requires you to have a business account as well.
If you do, go to your profile, find the pin you want to boost, and tap the promote button.
How much does it cost to boost posts?
Unfortunately, this is difficult to determine because advertising costs differ for everyone. They’re determined by the target audience you choose as well as your competition.
Costs usually come from clicks, meaning the users who click on your ads. You are not charged for the amount of users your post reached.
Fortunately, while everyone’s cost-per-click (CPC) is different, you can set a maximum budget per campaign so you never over spend.
Is organic reach declining?
Unfortunately, studies indicate that organic reach is declining.
According to a study of Instagram and Facebook, which was conducted by SocialInsider, Instagram had an average organic reach of 4% in 2024 while Facebook’s was 2.6%.
The company runs these tests every year, and they discovered that Instagram had an 18% decrease in organic reach year over year from 2023 to 2024.
Social Status tracks Facebook’s average organic reach on a monthly basis.
They found that average organic reach was 1.72% in February of 2025, down from 2.16% in August of 2024.
Is paying to boost posts worth it?
With organic reach declining, you may be wondering if now is the perfect time to start promoting your posts on whatever social media platform you use.
Unfortunately, some creators do not find success with this and only wind up wasting their money. Social media users tend to ignore ads, which means promoted posts, which are labelled as ads, often have fewer engagements.
And some creators simply don’t understand that money does not make up for social media content that’s just not that good.
Here are a few numbers from creators who have tried promoting their posts:
TikTok creator @thekoolkaycee used TikTok’s promotion feature to gain more followers.
She spent $10 for one day and only gained seven new followers as well as 1,100 video views. This works out to $1.43 per follower.
She spent $20 on a second campaign and gained 26 followers and 3,100 video views. This works out to $0.77 per follower.
This means if her goal is to gain 1,000 followers, which isn’t very much on TikTok, she’d have to spend between $770 and $1,430.
Hootsuite ran a small experiment involving $75 spent boosting a single post.
The post reached 7,447 users but only received 189 interactions. Overall, it had a click-through rate of 2.7%.
Should you boost posts?
You should try to boost posts on your chosen platform at least once just to see how it works for you.
Unfortunately, the figures I reported above are anecdotal.
Something you need to understand is that just because you promote a post that doesn’t mean that post will earn more engagements.
Just like organic reach, you need good content to succeed with paid reach.
The best thing you can do for your brand is work on creating better content.
Not only will this increase your odds of earning more organic reach, it’ll also increase your numbers from paid reach campaigns.
But proceed with caution. Some Instagram users have reported receiving much fewer organic engagements after they boosted posts for a while then stop.
While this is only a conspiracy theory right now, creators suspect Instagram is intentionally decreasing organic engagements in an effort to convince them that they need to boost posts in order to succeed.
Note: For a unique perspective on boosting posts on Facebook and ad copy, check out Adam’s article; Why I Write Bad Facebook Ad Copy On Purpose.
The rise of ad-free platforms
Decentralized social media platforms are here, and they’ve come to shake up the world of social media as we know it.
Decentralized social media platforms are social networks that are designed to work on any server, even a server you operate yourself.
This puts data and content moderation back into the hands of the user. In fact, privacy and data security are among the top reasons why more users want decentralized social media platforms.
Another reason is the way these apps are funded. Most are ad free, finding other ways to promote themselves, including user donations and sponsorships. Some are operated on a blockchain network that uses a specific cryptocurrency, which helps fund operation costs.
Whatever the case may be, these platforms don’t use traditional advertising models, so you won’t be able to boost posts on them.
The most popular decentralized social media platforms are Twitter competitors Bluesky and Mastodon.
Bluesky has gained huge momentum since it was created by Twitter’s former CEO Jack Dorsey.
In fact, the platform has over 23 million users and continues to gain more as X makes more and more changes to its platform and the reputation of its CEO, Elon Musk, continues to fall.
How to win on social without paying for reach
Now, I mentioned the importance of creating better content earlier. That’s a subjective topic and there are a lot of variables to consider.
But we need to look at what “better” means in the eyes of social media algorithms. And specifically what you can do to win without paying vast amounts of cash to popular social media platforms.
It all comes down to retention.
Each social media site will have an algorithm that works slightly differently but generally, it’s all about retention.
The longer you keep people glued to your content, the more of a push it will get from the algorithm.
Now, algorithms work by pushing your video to a small test audience. If retention rates are high, it will push your video out to a wider group of people, and if retention remains high, they’ll continue pushing it.
This does mean that you can sometimes reupload videos and get more views. It’s often that first test audience that will either boost or bury your video.
So, keep working on crafting your social media strategy around retention rates and you’ll start seeing better results.
I’d also recommend using social media analytics tools to get a better understanding of which videos are performing and which aren’t.
Sometimes it’ll literally come down to the test audience. Other times, there will be something you did differently in one video that you can apply to future videos.
For example, Adam Connell (founder of Blogging Wizard) noticed that shorter videos on TikTok tend to get more views. So, he experimented by speeding up videos and re-uploading them. Each video he sped up and reuploaded would get around 3x the views than the original slightly longer videos.
The original videos were 30-40 seconds and the sped up videos came in at below 20 seconds. Around 1.8x the original speed.
The sped up videos did sound a bit weird in terms of the audio, however. But it highlighted the importance of focusing on making videos that come in at below 20 seconds.
It’s these kind of insights that we can pull from our analytics. This is just one example. I’m sure you’ll be able to find other ways to increase your organic reach buried in your analytics.
If in doubt? Export your analytics from whatever tool you’re using and run them through an AI tool. Even something like Gemini would be able to spot some pretty useful patterns.
Final thoughts
So, should you embrace paid social media and start boosting your posts?
That’s a difficult question to answer. And I don’t think anyone but you can answer that question.
If algorithms aren’t picking up your content then it may be time to revisit your content and start by improving that first before you spend any money.
If you do go ahead and spend money on social media ads of any kind, you’ll need to ensure that you cap your spending and start small.
The best mindset to adopt going in is to be prepared to lose your money. It’s a gamble, after all.
You’ll also need to run a few different experiments to figure out the best way to make boosting posts work for you. And make it work on that platform you’re using.
They all work slightly differently so understanding the nuances of each one will be critical.
Finally, if you haven’t already, I’d recommend reading Adam’s post on how the blogging landscape has changed. It provides some guidance on how to adapt your blog to the shifting sands we find ourselves having to work with.
Lyn Wildwood is a member of the Blogging Wizard content team and a freelance writer for hire with over a decade of experience in the marketing space. She’s an expert when it comes to blogging and WordPress. She also has a strong background in testing social media software.
