10 Ways to Fight the Decline in Organic Reach on Social Media
As time goes on, it feels like organic reach on social platforms continues to decline further and further, even when it already seems like you're only getting to a tiny fraction of your audience with each of your posts.
We’ve 10 solid principles that will help you fight the decline of organic reach on social media.
1. Know the algorithms
Strep one learn about the algorithms of each social media network that you’re currently using.
In a generalised nutshell, social platform algorithms are based on three basic principles:
Recency - How long ago you published a post
Relevancy - How relevant your posts are to your audience
Engagement - How your audience reacts to posts you’ve published (likes comments and shares)
Each social media network has its own nuances when it comes to how it distributes content, but always keo these basic principles in mind when creating your social media content and marketing.
Our workshop is a great place to learn more on the algorithm if you need a further understanding.
2. Go Live
Have you tried it yet?
Live videos on Facebook (and other networks) get a lot of interaction, and the subsequent reach benefits can help boost your brand awareness.
Let your followers get to know your team, tease upcoming events, film product demos or simply have fun with Q & A sessions.
One more benefit of live videos? You can re-use them for additional content.
3. Feature User Generated Content
According to a recent survey by Stackla:
“Beyond being seen as the most authentic, user-generated content is also the most influential content consumers reference when making purchasing decisions. Most consumers say that they’ve made purchasing decisions based on user-generated visuals – 57% have made plans to dine at a particular restaurant, 54% have purchased a consumer packaged good and 52% have made plans to travel to a specific destination based on a consumer-created image or video.”
Listen to the people, and get moving on featuring user-generated content in your social media strategy to fight the decline in organic reach. In practice we absolutely see that user-generated pieces produce more engagement than original brand photography or product based imagery.
Stackla's survey also revealed that:
"51% of people say they’d be more likely to continue engaging with and/or purchasing from a brand if it shared their photo, video or post throughout its marketing."
4. Create unique content for each platform
Creating unique content for each social media network your brand is active on is A MUST & a way to fight the decline in organic reach on social media.
Use all aspects of the networks (stories, live, posts, IGTV and alike) to create more interest and engagement within each social network. Doing so will disrupt just posting images and videos, and give followers an extra incentive to follow your business on each platform as they will be getting a unique content on each platform .
5. Put a budget behind content
It obviously comes with some cost, but another quick way to fight the decline in organic reach of your social media posts is by using the various ad options at your disposal to give your updates an extra reach kick.
Targeting is your best friend here - unless you like to spend money on bad results. Knowing your customer is key, as there are SO many different ways to target social ads.
Consider your audience for each update, angle the post to those users, then target them specifically with your ad options.
But always remember boosting is not your friend! Set yourself up business manager and get creating ads in there! If you are unsure on how to do this, contact us!
6. Influencer marketing
Collaborating with influencers isn’t exactly instant, but it can be another option to fight the decline in organic social media reach.
The secret is to find the right influencers (Macro or Micro). Influencers who are aligned with your target consumer, and will attract the right customers for your business. You'll have to do your research, but once influencer campaigns are off the ground, you’ll open the door to more traffic, eyes, and reach on social media.
When reaching out to influencer be sure they are on brand and supply you with their current account analytics. This will allow for you to built out some targets and KPIs for the partnership.
7. Stories on Instagram
This one is specific to Instagram, but posting to your Instagram Stories can be a good way to increase reach.
By using hashtags, hashtag and location stickers within your Stories frames, you can get more reach for your account.
And of course:
8. Quality content
Quality, quality, quality! I can stress this enough. If the content is of a high quality, simply don’t post it!
Let’s think beyond the actual look of your content, and consider quality as in adding value to your audience and giving them content they actually want and need.
Conduct surveys and ask questions to really get to know what your audience is struggling with, what they enjoy seeing, and doing and how you can help them.
9. Consistency
Remain consistent!
This refers to being consistent in your posting frequency, consistency in your messaging and the look/feel of your accounts.
10. Analytics
Analytics are my favourite (NUMBERS ALWAYS)
Make it a habit to take a look at your analytics, and keep track of them. You can use third party tools, but I also just use the good old spreadsheet! Pay attention to what's working, and try to re-create those things - and stop spending time on things that don’t work.
We have templates available that are a great way to track your analytics. Contact us for more info.
Organic reach is not dead. But we are absolutely seeing a shift, and a consistent decline over time. Don’t blame the algorithms. The only true way to fight the decline in organic reach is to build a solid following, and concentrate on engaging and serving your unique audience so more organic reach will follow.