Chances are, you have likely caught wind of folks chatting about the diminishing reach of organic social media posts. It might leave you questioning: Is it still worth putting time, energy, and resources into an organic social media approach for UK businesses in 2024?
Well, the deal is, that organic social media still holds its value in 2024. It is a tool that can help you forge connections with potential customers, nurture relationships with existing ones, and give your sales a boost. The key to keeping your organic social media strategy effective is to stay on top of the platform’s changes.
Picture yourself as a surfer navigating the vast ocean of social media. You are on the lookout for the next big wave – be it a new social media feature or a shift in the industry – something you can ride on.
Just like a surfer needs to paddle swiftly to catch that wave, find the right balance on the board, and ride it smoothly towards the shore, marketers need to act fast, strategize, and strike the right balance between organic and paid social media to thrive in the game.
If you are keen on riding those social media waves, you are in for a treat! Keep scrolling to delve deeper into it.
What Is an Organic Social Media Strategy?
An organic social media strategy is essentially a marketing blueprint crafted to enhance the visibility of a company or individual across social media platforms, all without relying on paid advertisements.
Why is an Organic Social Marketing Strategy so Important?
In the current saturated digital environment, just maintaining a presence on social media platforms is not enough. To make a mark, brands require a deliberate organic strategy that cultivates authentic engagement and loyalty.
In 2024, prioritizing organic community-building is essential. It is the means through which you discover your true enthusiasts and fan base. Individuals who choose to follow your brand based on genuine interest or passion become the bedrock of your loyal community. This core group not only offers valuable insights into what resonates with them but also sets expectations for your brand. Their organic engagement serves as a guide for making informed decisions and creating relevant content. Emphasizing organic community-building facilitates more meaningful connections in a time marked by excessive digital noise and inauthenticity.
What are the benefits of organic social media marketing?
Understanding what an organic social media strategy entails, let us explore the advantages of incorporating it into your overall approach.
An organic social media strategy holds significant value within your marketing plan, primarily because it allows you to enhance your connection with customers on a large scale, given the whopping 5 billion active social media users!
When meticulously planned and executed, an organic social media strategy can yield several benefits:
- Free Exposure for Your Brand Story: Reach a broader audience without incurring additional costs by sharing your brand story through organic methods.
- Establishing Brand Identity: Define and showcase your brand’s personality, values, and positioning without the need for paid promotions.
- Building Meaningful Connections: Foster and strengthen relationships with customers and prospects by consistently sharing informative, inspiring, entertaining, and shareable content.
- Customer Engagement: Actively engage with your customers, creating a two-way communication channel and demonstrating your commitment to their needs.
- Customer Support: Address and resolve customer concerns or inquiries, showcasing your dedication to providing excellent customer service.
- Community Cultivation: Cultivate a community around your brand, bringing like-minded individuals together and creating a sense of belonging among your audience.
Organic Social Media vs. Paid Social Media:
Distinguishing between organic and paid social media strategies reveals key differences:
Organic Social Media Strategies:
- Relies on Free Reach: Hinges on the free exposure granted by social media algorithms for a piece of content. No payment is made to the platform for additional reach.
- Cost-Free Reach: Users never pay the social media platform for expanding the audience of their content.
Paid Social Media Strategies:
- Involves Payment: Requires users, be they companies or individuals, to pay the social media platform for displaying a specific post to a targeted audience.
- Faster Results: Typically generates quicker results by allowing users to increase reach through budget adjustments.
While paid social media often delivers swift outcomes due to increased budget flexibility, organic strategies tend to show a slower Return on Investment (ROI) since building a substantial following takes time. However, in the long run, organic approaches often boast a higher ROI. This is because once a robust following is established, there are no ongoing expenses for reaching and maintaining your target audience.
A 6-Step Organic Social Media Strategy That Works in 2024
1. Selecting the right social media platform is crucial for an effective online presence:
Before launching both, your organic and paid social media strategies, the crucial first step is choosing the right platforms. Tailoring your approach to the preferred platform of your target audience is key.
If you are unsure about your audience’s platform preference, consider reaching out via email to conduct a quick survey among your existing customer base. Express gratitude for their loyalty, and let them know you want to connect on their favourite social media platform. Use this opportunity to ask about their frequent platforms of choice.
Monitoring your competitors’ organic social media presence can also prove insightful. Identify where your customers and prospects are most active. Once you pinpoint the platforms they use, you can strategically focus your efforts there.
Additionally, examine the user demographics of each social media platform and compare them to your customer base. For instance, WhatsApp, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram lead the pack, even Pinterest in terms of the most used social media platforms in the UK. Surprisingly, TikTok does not fall into the top 5 most-used social media platforms, despite it being the fastest-growing social media platform. Aligning your chosen platforms with your audience’s preferences enhances the effectiveness of your social media strategy.
2. Frequently Create Outstanding Content
Consistently producing remarkable content is the cornerstone of a successful organic social media strategy. The tactic mentioned (step 2 to step 6) will only be effective if your organic content is deemed valuable by your audience.
The initial and fundamental step in crafting a thriving organic social media strategy is to generate content that captivates and resonates with your prospects.
So, what defines outstanding social media content? While it can vary based on your brand and industry, some common themes emerge in top-performing content:
- Original and Contrarian Ideas: Offering a unique perspective on commonly discussed topics sets your content apart.
- Humanistic Touch: Incorporating personal stories, casual iPhone videos, or any element that humanizes your brand and gives it a face.
- Visual Engagement: While text-based content can be effective, integrating visual assets like infographics often enhances shareability.
Different types of content may work for various brand personas and target audiences. Experiment with diverse content styles, such as infographics, user-generated content, videos, and text.
To give your posts an extra boost, consider these optimizations:
- Include Hashtags: Add three to five hashtags to boost your post’s visibility without triggering suspicion in the social media algorithm.
- Use Shortened URLs: Particularly crucial on platforms like LinkedIn, utilizing URL shorteners can enhance post aesthetics and engagement.
- Post Natively to Each Platform: When sharing videos, avoid linking to YouTube. Instead, upload directly to the platform. Format any written text to suit the nuances of each specific platform.
By consistently delivering valuable and varied content while employing these optimizations, you are more likely to capture and retain your audience’s attention across different social media channels.
3. Maintain a monthly posting schedule with a content calendar
A content calendar stands out as a straightforward yet crucial tool for your organic social media strategy. Establishing the practice of planning your organic social media content a month ahead offers several benefits.
Firstly, a content calendar provides a comprehensive view of your organic social media content for the upcoming month. This overview facilitates the creation of a cohesive strategy and helps you spot any potential content gaps. Additionally, it enables you to maintain a balanced approach, ensuring that you do not overshare one type of content over another.
Another advantage of having a content calendar is the ability to prepare for seasonal and holiday posts in advance. This proactive planning will allow you to stay relevant and timely, aligning your content with the interests and expectations of your followers during specific occasions.
In essence, a content calendar serves as an invaluable tool for maintaining consistency, strategic planning, and staying in sync with the seasonal rhythms of your audience’s interests.
4. Participate in groups and communities relevant to your brand
Indeed, social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn offer valuable features in the form of groups, which are essentially interest or niche-based online communities. Members within these groups can actively participate by creating posts, asking questions, and engaging with their own contributions and ideas.
Groups serve as excellent avenues for gaining insights into your target audience, essentially functioning as a social listening tool. By monitoring these groups, you can gauge whether your target customers are discussing your brand or your competitors, identify their pain points, and understand the solutions they are seeking within these communities.
Participating in these discussions will allow you to share ideas as well as solutions. However, it is crucial to avoid a hard-selling approach. Instead, focus on establishing your brand’s credibility by providing valuable insights and assistance. Over time, members may naturally recommend your business as a solution to the needs of other group members.
As an example, joining ‘Dog groups’ on social media to read product reviews and exchange ideas with fellow dog pet owners is an excellent strategy. Even without overt promotions, these online communities can influence purchasing decisions. Members will help other members in discovering new toys for their puppies through recommendations within these groups. It underscores the power of genuine engagement and the influence of community recommendations.
5. Collaborate With Social Media Influencers
Collaborating with influencers can be a powerful strategy to reach new audiences, especially if you’re aiming to expand your reach.
For B2C brands, the common approach involves paying influencers for posts. However, in the B2B realm, traditional paid campaign partnerships may not be as effective. Nevertheless, there are numerous organic ways to collaborate with B2B influencers, such as:
- Live Streaming Joint Webinars or Podcast Episodes: Co-hosting live webinars or podcast episodes on your brand’s social media accounts. This allows for shared expertise and audience engagement.
- Cross-Promoting Content with Parallel Brands: Collaborating with brands in a similar niche to cross-promote each other’s content. This mutual support enhances visibility and credibility.
- Providing Shoutouts to Parallel Brands: Offering shoutouts to parallel brands within your industry. This not only fosters a sense of community but also expands your reach to each other audiences.
- Forming Affiliate Relationships: Establishing affiliate relationships with other brands. This involves mutual promotion where you both benefit from driving traffic and customers to each other’s platforms.
6. Regularly assess and track the monthly performance of your organic social media posts
Most importantly, evaluating the performance of your organic social media posts is a crucial step in refining and enhancing your strategy. Understanding the correct tracking metrics will allow you to make informed decisions and improve your approach in the coming months.
Consider the following questions during your evaluation:
- Audience Interests: Which topics garnered the most interest from your audience? Identifying popular subjects helps you tailor future content to resonate with your audience’s preferences.
- Content Consumption Patterns: What type of content did your audience consume the most? Whether it’s videos, infographics, or written posts, recognizing the preferred content format aids in optimizing your content mix.
- Website Traffic Impact: Which social media posts drove the highest number of visitors to your website? Understanding the posts that effectively direct traffic to your site informs your content strategy for achieving specific goals, such as driving website visits or conversions.
By delving into the monthly performance of your organic social media strategy, you gain valuable insights into your audience’s interests, concerns, pain points, and attitudes toward your brand. Armed with this knowledge, you can plan a more targeted and effective organic social media content calendar for the future. This will help foster a deeper understanding and connection with your customers.
Kickstart your organic social media strategy today
Cultivating an organic social media presence is undeniably invaluable for businesses. It not only facilitates the establishment of trust with potential customers but also ensures a lasting impression on existing ones, directly impacting crucial Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) like acquiring new customers. Additionally, maintaining an organic presence provides a robust promotional engine for new sales, blog posts, or talent-sourcing initiatives.
Out of the various tactics mentioned, influencer marketing stands out as particularly effective in growing your organic social media presence in the UK. Unfortunately, many content managers may not fully grasp its power due to a lack of an efficient system for content assignment and result measurement.
Recognizing the potential impact of influencers, we believe it is a cornerstone strategy for organic social media growth.
If you are interested, do not hesitate to connect with Mind and Matter – a leading social media marketing agency in the UK, to witness firsthand how such an agency can elevate your social media platform presence via ‘paid’ as well as ‘organic’ strategies.
