Ervin Kalemi
NEW
Is organic social media marketing dead? You’d think so with the way organic reach and engagement plummeted to abysmal levels.
Both Facebook and Instagram are seeing massive dips in organic engagement in the past years. These platforms intentionally favor paid marketing efforts.
With all these considered, is investing in an organic social media marketing strategy still worth it in 2023? The short answer?—Yes!
Social media is always evolving, updating algorithms, and going through trends. The challenge is finding a dynamic strategy that serves as a solid foundation for your campaigns.
In this article, we’ll focus on how your brand can build that foundation for your organic social media strategies. To recap, here are the basics.
Organic marketing is any marketing effort you don’t pay for. This means no sponsored content, no ads, and no boosts.
It’ll take more effort to reach your audience this way. But the long-term results are worth it.
Choosing organic marketing promotes authenticity and incentivizes brands to focus on creating engaging content. That’s not to say paid ads won’t be engaging.
Marketers have to balance out using paid marketing and organic social media strategies for a holistic campaign. Here are the key differences between the two:
Both organic and paid social media strategies serve a purpose. Each has its own advantages.
Use organic marketing to
Paid marketing is best when:
Organic social media strategies provide brands with sustainable marketing efforts. Applying the best practices provides the following benefits:
Brands that become an authority in their niche are viewed as trustworthy. According to studies, customers are likely to purchase products from trusted brands.
It also makes your brand the “go-to” name in a certain niche. Luth Research suggests that customers favor organic campaign efforts over paid advertising.
Organic campaigns are made for the long haul. It builds the foundations of a sustainable marketing campaign and helps supports your sales funnel.
Think about it this way, social media is full of ads. Not everybody likes this aspect of social media. If you can provide value to your audience organically, you’ll also build your credibility.
The goal of using social media for brand growth isn’t just about converting leads into sales. It’s establishing your brand as an authority.
Social media is the perfect place to communicate with your audience. Statistics show that 59.3% of internet users are on social media.
Brands have the option to automate responses but having a human touch to your conversations helps increase sales.
Engaging with your audience promotes a positive image. There’s a lot to learn if you take customer feedback into account. Both good and bad comments are an opportunity for growth.
Brands taking advantage of this can provide better value to their customers and show they care.
But despite the benefits, organic marketing comes with its own set of challenges.
The landscape of organic marketing has changed throughout the years because of algorithm changes and evolving trends. But two factors remain a fundamental challenge for marketers.
Each year, social media becomes more saturated with brands competing for customers’ attention. This incentivizes some brands to use aggressive paid marketing.
As mentioned earlier, marketers often feel like they’re at the mercy of platform changes and trends. The prime examples are Facebook and Instagram.
These platforms shifted their focus and favors paid advertising. You’ve got to put up a fight if you want a spot on your audience’s news feed.
But even with these changes, the following strategies have been tested and proven to promote the long-term growth of your brand’s social media presence.
Marketers shouldn’t be focusing on paid vs organic social media strategies. Both are valuable to the holistic growth of your brand online.
Use paid strategies to pull in new customers. Then use the following organic strategies to build relationships with your existing audience:
Social media users spend time on different platforms. Your brand needs to identify which ones your target audience spends time with the most.
If you’re not sure where to start, go look at your competitors. It’ll be a good indicator of where you can find prospects. Another option is to look at the statistics.
According to Pew Research data, 71% of U.S. adults aged 18 to 29 are on Instagram, 48% are on Tiktok, and 65% are on Snapchat.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be found in both Google and Social media platforms. Your brand should optimize for both when creating and publishing content.
A good practice is integrating your social media into your website. You can do this through social media plugins for WordPress or similar site builders.
Social media SEO is the platforms’ way of promoting positive user experiences. Marketers can tweak everything from the captions of your photos to your bio for better search visibility.
Here are a couple of tips to remember:
Scheduling social media posts is essential for both the algorithm and your audience. Your not just competing for news feed real estate from other brands but thousands of users as well.
To ensure that your posts get the most visibility, consider publishing them when the majority of your audience is online, improving your organic reach.
One of the best ways to ensure a consistent schedule is by using social media automation tools like PUBLER!
Viral content is one of the best forms of organic marketing. It’s any post that has massive engagement and shares without any help from paid efforts.
The most viral are usually memes. Funny videos, photos, and especially things that are relatable.
Electronic word-of-mouth travels fast. Brands that learn how to create viral content can see huge improvements to reach and engagement, even beyond their target audience.
Engaging with your audience promotes personalization. If you engage with comments, suggestions, and reviews, your brand also helps with user-generated content (UGC).
As we all know, engagement is a key metric every brand has to focus on. Since we’re doing organic campaigns, engaging our audience is essential to growing our brand.
Evergreens are photos, videos, infographics, or any type of content users can go back to at any time. These are long-lasting pieces of content that can stand the test of time.
Examples of these are informational pieces, best practices, historical articles, or fundamentals.
If your content is evergreen and provides value, people will always go back to it. This can make your brand and authority.
Everybody likes free stuff. If your brand has giveaways and contests, it’s an effective way of improving engagement and reach.
You can even get a lot of new followers this way. For example, users who want to enter a contest are required to follow your account and tag their friends in the comments.
Groups are a surefire way of gauging what your audience needs, their pain points, and more. You can offer your thoughts and solutions as an industry expert. But, never hard-sell products.
If you do, you can come off as inauthentic and only there to sell your products.
Educational content that’s also entertaining is an excellent way of promoting your product. Purely educational pieces can be boring and bland.
But if it’s disguised as a meme, it can be engaging, funny, and even go viral. Blending this together with product promotions helps increase your reach and organic engagement.
Monitoring your campaigns through analytics ensures that your brand goals are being met. If it’s not, then marketers can go back to the drawing board to better improve campaigns.
Analytics allows you to monitor metrics including reach, impressions, follower growth, and engagement rate.
Organic social media strategies help your brand establish its online presence. It’s sustainable, scalable, and supports your brand’s long-term success.
Here’s a rundown of what you need to know regarding organic marketing:
If you want to learn more about how to scale your paid and organic marketing campaigns, then look no further than Publer. Sign-up for a free trial today!
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