Can Organic Social Content Still Drive Engagement?

Paid social media advertising is a quick way to build a social audience, but organic social content is still effective for getting users engaged.

Organic social content can drive engagement, but only if the content is relevant to a specific audience and stands out from the competition. As organic page reach continues to decline for both brands and publishers, social media marketing relies on content that gets noticed.

Social networking sites want to extract more money from business owners and are altering their algorithms so that content without advertising dollars behind it is deprioritized. Despite the many people who say that organic social content is dead, those who can do it right can find considerable success with this type of marketing.

What is Organic Social Content?

Organic social content refers to any post on a social media network that is not boosted by paid promotions. This can be anything from a video posted on your brand’s official YouTube channel, a TikTok, a Story, a Tweet, or a post on your brand’s Facebook page. Once it’s posted, only a fraction of your followers see it. For example, if your Facebook page has 1,000 followers, it doesn’t mean that anything you post on your page will be shown to all your followers. The average organic reach for a Facebook Page post is 5.2%. That means only one in every nineteen followers sees the page’s unpaid content. If these fans like what they see and share it on their own feeds, this will enable their followers to see content from your brand’s social media presence even if they’re not directly following you. This is the organic reach. Now let’s assume that you already use hashtags in your posts. The people who follow those hashtags may also see your posts.

How Make Your Organic Social Content More Relevant

With the substantial number of brands already present in your space, getting past the noise on social media is challenging but can be done successfully. When it comes to brands succeeding in social media, authenticity is key. Approachable, authentic brands build trust with audiences. By publishing social media posts that sound like they’re coming from the brand itself, increases trustworthiness and encourages conversions and long-term loyalty. When you use organic content to build trust with your followers, it’s easier to convince them of your products’ value. The more conversions you get, the more people will start talking about your brand, which will extend your reach.

Community-building is also important for brands that are starting out or trying to expand their reach. Organic social content helps convince people who just discovered your brand to stick around and stay engaged. If a visitor lands on your Facebook page through an ad and sees only ads and no other content, they’ll leave your page quickly. On the other hand, if they find an abundance of organic content like brand insights, customer testimonials, product reviews, etc. they’ll stick around longer and potentially take a greater liking to your brand.

Extracting Meaningful Engagement from Organic Social Content Takes Practice.

It’s true that extraction of engagement from Organic Social Content is a lot more difficult than with Paid Campaign, but it’s attainable. Tapping into organic social content to create engaging posts is an art that takes diligence. Although organic social engagement can be much harder to achieve than paid ads, it can snowball into something bigger than what the best paid ad campaign can ever produce. Most contents that go viral are not paid campaigns. The content just needs to be interesting enough to attract the attention of a lot of people. If they keep sharing it, things just snowball from there and the engagement metrics would be much higher than even the best paid campaigns.

1. Take Advantage of Trends

Brands cannot manufacture current events but can find opportunities to increase their reach by creating content around trending events or stories. Whether it’s a celebrity slips up, a global event or simply a heartwarming story, you might take advantage of this moment to create organic content. Brands can exploit other global events and topics to further their own online presence. If you do so, try to be sensitive and avoid being seen as insensitive or tasteless.

2. Use Authentic Content

Authentic content that highlights how your product or service benefits others will help you attract a following. Content that is unpolished and unfiltered, ideally user-generated, projects an air of authenticity and affinity for your community. It can attract viewers who are not familiar with your brand but would be intrigued just enough to learn more about you and your products.

3. Optimize for each Social Media Platform

It is important to keep in mind the best practices for each social media platform when creating organic content. Think about the best ways to optimize for each platform. What works on Facebook may not work on TikTok. If something drives engagement on Instagram it may not perform well on Snapchat. Written content with a feel of community and sentimentality does better on Facebook than on LinkedIn, as the audience there is more receptive to it. These considerations may appear minor, but they can make a world of difference when developing your overall organic strategy. This is especially important because different social media platforms have different audiences and therefore require distinct kinds of content to reach them.

Paid Vs Organic Social Content?

The truth is, it’s really not an either/or decision. Paid social media is a powerful way to get the word out and reach new audiences, while organic content allows brands to build trust and sustain engagement over time. We like to think about organic social content as more of a marathon than a sprint. Taking the effort to create and distribute content that meets the audience’s interests can help brands build trust, loyalty, and a sustainable relationship with their customers. When organic social content is paired with paid advertisements, this strategy can allow you to reap the full benefits of social media marketing

If you don’t have the time or the resources to do it yourself, work with a marketing agency like DaDigitalSense Marketing, with a terrific performance history.