Is spending money on social media growth worth it or a waste?

[u/bekies]

Been running a small business for 3 months and trying to decide if I should invest in growth tools. The time it takes to grow organically is insane when you're also trying to run the business.

Looking at options some cost hundreds for so called organic growth strategies that might not even work. Then there are the direct engagement services that cost almost nothing but feel like cheating.

What's been your experience? Did you invest in growth and see returns?

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[u/Expensive-Fudge8337]

Skip the "direct engagement" ones for sure — fake followers make your real engagement rate look bad, and algorithm actually push you less because of it. If you gonna spend money, put small amount into boosting your own best-performing post to real target audience, way safer bet than any mystery "growth strategy" package.

[u/Agreeable_Elk4529]

If the growth isn’t bringing you real customers, leads or sales, it’s not growth, just a bigger number on your screen, so I’d invest in content and targeted ads before paying for fake engagement.

[u/Next-Pro]

Every time the company I work for did an ad on the product, the engagement fell drastically. Every time someone I know paid for engagement on TikTok/insta the views on the next videos went drastically down. And I myself tried to push my YouTube from 300 views via paid campaign, all the next videos had 0 views. But since so many people keep on doing ads then maybe it works in some cases? I just know I’ll never pay for engagement again.

[u/max-at-sprout]

It really depends, and I don't think there is a best once case fits all approach here. I think it makes a lot of sense to test the waters if you can. For tools, there are a lot of free trials and ways to see how it's working, etc. For putting paid money into influencers, paid ads, etc. you can also test this on a smaller case by case basis instead of just dumping a ton of money first. It might be more work doing this, but worth it so you find what works for you and your business.