What is paid social?
Short answer
Paid social is any advertising you pay for on social platforms, such as Meta ads on Instagram and Facebook, YouTube ads, or paid posts by creators.
Paid social sits alongside organic social, which is the content you post without paying for reach. Most brands use both: organic to build an audience and paid to reach new people reliably.
Most paid social is bought through auctions, which makes it flexible but hard to predict. Paid creator posts are usually bought at a fixed fee per post.
Pomera is a third option: paid posts by publishers, bought at a fixed rate per 1,000 verified views. See paid vs organic social.