In social media marketing, there are two key strategies for reaching your audience: Paid Social and Earned Social.

When people hear “Paid Social” they often think it’s about buying followers or likes. In reality it’s about expanding your reach through paid media like ads or promoted posts, highly targeted ads and sponsored content. Helping you get noticed by audiences who might otherwise miss your message. Paid Social is measurable, scalable and specific in who it targets.

On the other hand, “Earned Social” isn’t just about posting every day and hoping for traction. It’s built on strategy, timing and placing the right content in front of the right audience at the right moment. This involves reach gained organically without using paid ads, driven by consistent content, audience engagement and community support. It includes everything from organic content planning to community engagement and word-of-mouth advocacy.

Both are essential for visibility. Earned Social builds trust, drives long-term engagement and helps you understand your audience’s behaviour. Paid Social works as an extension of those efforts, helping you scale what’s already working and reach potential advocates.

With ever-evolving algorithms on platforms like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, knowing when to rely on Paid or Earned, or how to blend both, can make or break your campaign.

In this blog, we’ll explore how Pro Audio and Music Technology brands can use both approaches. You’ll find examples, insights and practical tips to help you choose the right strategy for your next campaign.

Earned Social – Building Authenticity and Advocacy

As mentioned earlier, Earned Social is all about the organic side of social media marketing. It gives your brand authenticity and credibility by letting others speak on your behalf. When your audience advocates for your products, it carries more weight than any sponsored post ever could. Earned Social can be broken down into five key pillars:

• Mentions: Posts made by other social media users talking about your product and why they love it. These mentions are a powerful form of brand advocacy and offer insights into which audiences genuinely value what you create.
  
• Shares: A major pillar of Earned Social. When people share your content, it tells the algorithm and their followers that your content has value. Shares help expand your reach and reinforce your brand’s authenticity.
  
• UGC (User-Generated Content): In the audio and music technology world, UGC is gold. Your audience becomes your promoters by showing how they use your gear. Whether it’s a studio setup, performance clip or unboxing, this content builds social proof and drives curiosity from new users.
  
• Influencer Shoutouts: While shoutouts sometimes involve paid collaborations, organic ones, especially from respected artists or engineers, can spark major attention. If a synthwave producer casually mentions your module in a video, it can drive significant traffic and build trust. These unsolicited endorsements are incredibly powerful and often open the door to deeper, more authentic collaborations, particularly on platforms like YouTube where demos and walkthroughs are king.
  
• Word of Mouth: Yes, it still matters and in the digital age, it shows up in places like Reddit, Discord, and niche forums. A casual post in a gear thread can snowball into wider awareness. These conversations are authentic and often more trusted than direct brand messaging.

Now, you might be thinking, “Why bother with Paid Social if Earned can do all this?”

Here’s the reality: Earned Social takes time. It doesn’t happen overnight and you have far less direct control over how and when your brand is mentioned. But that’s part of its power. Brands like Erica Synths have spent over a decade cultivating community-driven momentum. It’s a slow burn, but a lasting one.

How to Leverage Earned Social Effectively (Especially on Instagram)

To cultivate earned social, you need to actively engage and facilitate opportunities for your audience to champion your brand:

• Start Conversations: Whether you have 1,000 or 1,000,000 followers, actively talk to them. Ask what they love, what they want to see more of and how they use your products. A prompt like “Show us your favorite Eurorack module and why you love it!” opens the door to genuine engagement and UGC.
  
• Use Hashtags Intentionally: Hashtags are more than decoration, they help the algorithm understand who to show your content to. Create unique branded hashtags to build a searchable trail for your content and actively encourage your community to use them in their posts about your products.
  
• Check Your Insights: If you’re connected to Meta Business Suite (or similar analytics tools for other platforms), you’ll have access to detailed audience data.
  
  Pro tip: the “Audience” tab often shows you when your followers are most active, helping you optimize your posting schedule for maximum organic reach.
  
• Engage with UGC: When someone posts about your product, show up! Like, comment, and share it to your Stories or feed (always with permission, if it’s a prominent feature). When a customer sees their post reshared by the brand they love, it builds incredible loyalty and encourages others to create similar content.
  
• Practice Social Listening: Keep an eye on what people are saying about your brand, even when they’re not directly tagging you. Reddit threads, Discord comments and open questions in your DMs are all chances to join the conversation and offer value. Respond with care, answer questions and if needed, guide them to someone who can help.

Paid Social – Expanding Reach and Gaining Exposure

With over half the world’s population online, reaching the right audience for your pro audio or music tech brand might seem straightforward. But as social platforms become more saturated, cutting through the noise, especially against brands with larger followings and longer histories, gets harder. Paid Social isn’t the only option, but at Cadence Solutions, we see it as most effective when driven by a clear and specific goal.

Paid Social gives you the power to boost posts or run targeted ads that connect with a broader or more defined audience. Unlike Earned Social, which builds organically, Paid Social lets you control who sees your content, when they see it and how often. It’s scalable and measurable, both essential when you’re aiming to grow.

Paid Social is built around three core data sets that enable precise targeting:

• Demographics: This includes age, location (think key music hubs like Los Angeles, Berlin, or Melbourne), gender and even job titles relevant to your audience, such as sound engineers or music producers.
  
• Behaviours: Target users based on online activity, whether they’ve visited gear review sites, watched music production tutorials or searched for audio plugins.
  
• Engagement: Reach people who’ve interacted with your posts, visited your website or followed similar brands. This is where retargeting becomes powerful.
  

These insights do more than shape your paid campaigns, they help refine your organic strategy too, improving when and how you post.

Of course, Paid Social has its challenges. It can come off as inauthentic if poorly executed and costs can spiral without the right planning. That’s especially important in our space, where trust and credibility matter. In the Pro Audio and Music Technology community, authenticity isn’t optional, it’s essential. That’s why we always recommend approaching Paid Social with strategic intent.

For example, if your goal is to grow your email list, retarget users who’ve engaged with your organic posts using a paid campaign that offers exclusive content via your newsletter. This kind of cross-channel approach strengthens your marketing funnel, turning passive interest into active engagement.

How to Leverage Paid Social Effectively (Especially on Facebook)

Let’s say you’re preparing to launch a new Eurorack module or outboard processor and want to promote it. Here are five key areas to focus on before hitting publish:

• Objectives: Don’t boost a post just to be seen. Set a clear outcome, whether that’s clicks to a product page, pre-orders or video views of a gear demo. Align your creativity with that goal.
  
• Audience: Know who you’re speaking to. Review your previous posts for performance, dig into follower insights and research your competitors. The more precise your targeting, the more efficient your spend.
  
• Content: Keep it consistent with your brand’s tone and style. Paid posts should feel like a natural extension of your feed. Think studio walkthroughs, artist shoutouts or slick product demos that feel real, not rehearsed.
  
• A/B Testing: Test multiple versions of your ad. Different visuals, copy and formats (like video vs static image) can make a big difference. Let the data guide your decisions.
  
• Budget: Start with a manageable spend. Facebook offers two core pricing models:
  
  • CPC (Cost Per Click): You only pay when someone clicks. Ideal for campaigns focused on conversions, lead generation, or traffic to your site.
    
  • CPM (Cost Per Mille): You pay per 1,000 impressions. Best when you’re focused on brand awareness and visibility across a broad but relevant audience.

Building Your Social Cadence: Integrating Earned and Paid Strategies

Having outlined the unique strengths and growth potential of both Paid and Earned Social, the critical question remains: how do these strategies truly work together effectively? The answer is a resounding yes and their combined power creates a marketing cadence far more impactful than either strategy alone.

Let’s say you developed an audio interface that’s been in the market for six months. You post on TikTok: “Show your unique signal flow with our interface.” Your audience responds by showing off their creative setups. That’s Earned Social in action. Now you can convert that momentum into Paid Social.

Using the insights and engagement from that post, you collect the best user-generated content, edit a compelling video and promote it through a paid ad. Not only do you already have proof of community engagement, but you’re also creating a loop that builds on both data and creativity.

This does two key things within your marketing funnel:

• It shows you have real brand advocates.
• It guides new audiences from Awareness through to Advocacy.

Monitoring performance and refining your strategy along the way will help you get more value from your Paid Social, without losing the authenticity that Earned Social creates.

Let Us Help with Your Social Cadence

Want to get the most out of your Earned and Paid Social for your pro audio or music tech brand? At Cadence Solutions, we work with you to build the right strategy based on your unique goals. Let’s talk about where you want to take your brand and whether Earned, Paid, or both can drive the attention and awareness you’re looking for in this specialised industry.

Contact us today to schedule a free 2-hour consultation and get things moving!