Social snapshot: No budget, no eyeballs

March 12, 2025

Visibility now comes with a price tag

The last scraps of organic reach have crumbled, leaving brands and creators staring at their engagement metrics in horror. If you’re not paying, you’re not playing.

For years, brands have clung to the idea that social media could still drive results without an ad budget. But 2025 has made it painfully clear: if you want visibility, you’ll need to put money behind your content.

This shift doesn’t just affect brands, it’s hitting personal branding too. LinkedIn is turning into a monetisation machine, TikTok is getting increasingly pay-heavy, and Facebook and Instagram’s organic reach figures are so low they might as well not exist.

So, how do you spend smart rather than just handing over endless cash to the platforms?

Organic reach is dead. The funeral was quiet.

The numbers paint a bleak picture.

• Facebook’s organic reach is now just 2.6% on average (SocialBee).
• Instagram sits at 4% and continues to decline.
• Even LinkedIn’s organic reach is taking a hit, particularly for company pages, as the platform nudges users towards paid options (HeyOrca).

For context, a few years ago, organic reach on Facebook was at least 5x higher than it is today. But as ad inventory tightens and platforms prioritise paid content, free exposure is almost non-existent.

This isn’t just about brands, it’s hitting personal brands too. Individual LinkedIn users who used to rack up thousands of views on posts are now seeing engagement drop unless they’re

• Posting highly interactive content
• Engaging with others constantly (which is time-intensive).
• Paying to boost their best posts.

Our advice

1. Stop posting for the sake of it. If organic posts aren’t leading to real engagement, use them as testing grounds.
2. Double down on high-retention content. The algorithm still prioritises content that keeps users on-platform such as short-form video and interactive posts perform best.
3. Identify your organic winners, then put paid behind them. The smartest brands aren’t throwing money at every post; they’re amplifying what’s already working.

Ad spend is going through the roof

With organic reach barely moving the needle, brands have no choice but to spend. And they are. Social media ad spend is set to surpass $276.7 billion globally in 2025 (SocialBee).

This spending surge has consequences:

• More competition = higher costs. Cost-per-click (CPC) has increased across every major platform, and it’s particularly brutal on LinkedIn, where CPCs for B2B ads now start at around £8–£12 (Gupta Media).
• Attention spans are shrinking. Users are scrolling past ads faster, meaning static ads are losing effectiveness.
• AI and automation are taking over. Meta’s Advantage+ and Google’s Performance Max are now optimising ad creative, audience selection, and bidding automatically (Byte).

What should brands do?

1. Use AI to optimise campaigns. But do note, these tools aren’t perfect so do keep an eye on them and optimise manually(Nogood). Some great advice on https://immediatefuture.co.uk/blog/ai-for-social-advertising-missing-the-mark/
2. Get strategic with targeting. Third-party cookies are disappearing, so first-party data (email lists, CRM audiences) is now essential.
3. Short-form video or bust. TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts have engagement rates far beyond static ads. TikTok still leads, with a 2.5% engagement rate, massively higher than Facebook’s 0.13% (SocialInsider).

LinkedIn is monetising everything

If you thought LinkedIn was a free-for-all for thought leaders, think again.

• They’re rolling out a Premium Company Page subscription at $99/month
• Thought-leader ads are expanding, allowing anyone to sponsor content, not just employees.

This is a clear signal that LinkedIn wants businesses to pay for visibility.

Our advice

1. If you run a company page, test the premium tier. It might be worth it.
2. If you’re a personal brand, go niche. The more specific your audience, the better your content will perform organically.
3. Consider paid promotion for top-performing posts. This is particularly useful for consultants, agency owners, and industry experts.

How to win without burning money

Brands that succeed in this pay-to-play world will do three things differently.

1.        Stop chasing vanity metrics

Likes and reach are useless if they don’t drive business outcomes. Measure what matters:

· B2B? Track leads, demo bookings, and pipeline growth.

· E-commerce? Focus on conversions and repeat purchases.

· Personal brand? Engagement plus inbound opportunities.

If your engagement is high but your sales aren’t moving, you’re measuring the wrong thing.

2.        Balance organic with paid intelligently

The best brands don’t just spend more, they spend smarter. The formula looks like this:

· Use organic to test. Identify high-performing content before spending a penny.

· Put paid behind what’s working. Don’t waste budget on low-engagement posts.

· Optimise relentlessly. Track results, tweak messaging, and iterate constantly.

3.        Make content worth paying for

The old rule still applies: if your content is bad, no amount of money will save it.

In 2025, this means:

· Video first, always. Video ads have 3x the engagement of static posts (Digital NRG).

· Behavioural science-led ads. Social platforms are using predictive AI to push emotionally resonant content, your ads need to trigger emotions to perform well (Richard Shotton).

· Less frequency, more impact. Don’t flood feeds. One high-impact post a week is better than five mediocre ones.

Success is down to…

·      Use organic as an insight tool, not a replacement for paid.

·      Prioritise video, first-party data, and AI-driven optimisation.

·      Spend strategically, not wastefully.

So, are you adapting, or just throwing money at the algorithm and hoping for the best?

Let’s talk about how to make your budget work harder. Because spending smart is the new spending big.