How to create an organic social media strategy for your business

What does an organic social media strategy involve?

Organic social media refers to organic, unpaid methods of promoting your business through social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. One advantage of this is that it allows you to connect with potential customers on a personal level whilst also maximising your organic reach. Personality is what connects people to your product. Rather than flyer your profile with promotions, provide value that will increase word of mouth. When you post organic content, you’re providing valuable information that helps people get to know your company and become an industry leader within your field. Your organic social strategy can complement your other marketing activities. For example, you can coincide social media content with email marketing or promotion on search engines to amplify your message to effectively target people. If you’re looking to generate customers and leads over a long period of time, organic social media is a great choice. Social media can also help you retain customers and continue to build a positive relationship with them, long after their initial purchase.

For optimal ROI, organic social media should also be paired with other marketing activities. For example, you could pair your organic social media marketing with a paid strategy. This can give you a larger reach, much quicker on social media. Paid advertising is a great choice if you’re launching a product or want to hit particular sales goals quickly.

Who is your ideal target audience?

Before generating your strategy – think about your ideal target audience. Who do you want to be following you on social media? Take a look at existing followers. Do they match your target demographics? Your new social media strategy should be targeting users within your chosen market segments. Choosing your target audiences carefully will help you increase followers quicker as they’re gaining more value from your accounts. This will mean you end up growing much faster than word of mouth. Generating content that provides your audience with value is the key to helping your profiles grow. As your campaigns progress, you may spot areas to capitalize on, or improvements that need to be made. Once you know this it’s easier to ensure content resonates with your ideal audience.

Your chosen strategy should also involve creating valuable content that social users will want to read and share. This could be blog posts, infographics, images, or videos related to your industry. Take a look at your list of personal contacts and existing customers. What social media platforms do they use? Tailor your organic social strategies to these platforms for the best results and optimal organic reach. Remember, organic social media is a slow and steady process – it won’t happen overnight. It takes time to build an organic following on social media because organic marketing is patient and long-term focused.

Which of social media platforms should you use?

There are a few different social media platforms that you can use to reach your target market and boost your brand awareness. Social media users consume each platform differently – at different times of the day and for different purposes. Your messaging on each platform should be tailored to this. The most popular social networks include: -Facebook -Twitter -LinkedIn -Instagram

How do you know what content to post?

An organic social media strategy needs to be sustainable in the longer term so it may be best to start your content gradually to find out what works on each social network. The content needs to be tailored towards the specific platform you’re posting to. There are many free tools available to help pick the content to post such as Buzzsumo. Re-posting trending content is also a good tactic. The social media platforms often have advanced search tools that can help you find trending content. Remember that the people who’ve interacted with content in your industry are likely to be your target customers! For organic Facebook posts, articles with visuals are the most effective. It’s important to note that Facebook has changed its news feed algorithm. The site has shifted its criteria based on a new focus to its core ideal. It wants a platform that is about connecting people rather than “consuming media in isolation”.  In other words, it’s vital that whether you’re using paid ads or organic content, content on Facebook should work to add value for your audience. Twitter is perfect for short content like quotes and images that can be posted with hashtags. For Twitter, try to use 2-3 different hashtags for maximum results. LinkedIn is ideal for more business-related updates, like job postings and targeted company announcements that are relevant to your specific audience. And for organic Instagram posts, keep it visual with interesting images and videos that capture the essence of your company. Can you provide any behind the scenes insight into your company? When creating organic social media content, the key is to provide value for your audience through posting relevant content. Using these organic tactics will keep users coming back to your accounts and ensure they pay attention to your content.

Improve your strategy through monitoring your performance each month

Your strategy should build in flexibility – room for you to respond to what your audience are engaging with. Keeping a close eye on your analytics can help you identify this content. Once you begin to gain traction take a look at some important organic social media metrics to track: Engagements – This includes likes, shares, and comments on your posts. Organic Reach – This measures how many organic web visitors your posts have reached. Post Engagements – These are the number of times people have interacted with your posts (likes, shares, comments). Traffic – This is the number of visitors that land on your website from your social media posts.

You can also assess when the most popular times to post are for both organic reach and engagement. For example, the afternoon works well for a Facebook post or tweet. The morning is best for LinkedIn. However, it’s crucial to use data from your own audience too. Leads Generated – This is the number of leads that have been generated as a direct result of organic social media marketing. That means they should be realistic, ambitious yet achievable within the time and resources you have available. Be sure that you aren’t using vanity metrics in your monthly analysis. For example, you could have a significant number of followers on your platforms, but if they’re not engaging with your content then your business won’t grow as a result of your content.

Most of social media platforms have native analytics that will show you basic data such as followers & impressions. Facebook for example allows you to export your page insights. If you’re after more details such as the number of interactions your content has had on the hashtags you’ve used, you could enlist the help of a social media management tool. Your social strategy should be flexible to respond to these metrics and ultimately do more of what is working. Your metrics may also mean you consider other platforms for your marketing. The metrics resulting from social marketing should track should help to achieve your wider business goals.

The end goal you should be working towards is where customers begin to talk about your brand positively on social media. This is organic marketing at its finest- when customers do the marketing for you. How is user generated content created? You can host discussions online, Q&A sessions and competitions. Don’t forget to tell your customers they can find you across the platforms! You might do this in the body of an email or on your website. Organic social media marketing can also be paired with a paid social media strategy for greater and quicker reach. Paid social campaigns may be used to advertise a particular product or service, whilst organic content increases brand presence more generally.

Before you start – who is your ideal target audience?

Who do you want to be following you on social media? Take a look at existing followers. Target users similar to these and you’ll be able to grow much faster than word of mouth. You may spot areas to capitalize on, or improvements that need to be made. Once you know this it’s easier to ensure content resonates with your ideal audience. Your chosen strategy should also involve creating valuable content that social users will want to read and share. This could be blog posts, infographics, images, or videos related to your industry. Take a look at your list of personal contacts and existing customers. What social media platforms do they use? Tailor your organic social strategies to these platforms for the best results and optimal organic reach. Remember, organic social media is a slow and steady process – it won’t happen overnight. It takes time to build an organic following on social media because organic marketing is patient and long-term focused.

Once your social media platforms have begun to grow – you may want to prepare for influencer marketing. Influencer marketing is when you partner with other experts in your industry to amplify organic marketing efforts. Start by collating a list of key opinion leaders within your niche. This is a great starting point when deciding who to contact. Influencers could play a variety of roles within your business. You could get the influencer to simply retweet or reshare a post of yours or you could work out a more detailed online event for maximum engagement. This is a great way to build authority for your brand and target new customers, but it comes with its own set of metrics that should be monitored closely so the partnership can provide maximum value for both parties.

This means that paid ad campaigns can use as many or as few resources as necessary to paid content and alter ad spend accordingly. You are also able to refine audience targeting mid way through a paid social media campaign which can be a crucial step towards optimising your ROI. Paid social media marketing has recently undergone a transformation. There’s now so many different options for paid advertising to help you achieve different business goals. This could be anything from driving website traffic to lead generation. Paid social media campaigns also offer the advantage of real-time analytics which can give you an immediate understanding of how well your campaign is performing.

For maximum social media reach, it’s time to create your strategy

By posting organic content on these platforms, you can reach a massive audience and help your business grow. As a social media marketer, I’ve worked with clients on both an organic and paid marketing strategy. Whatever strategy you’d prefer to pursue, social media can help increase the ROI of your other marketing activities. If you’re struggling with how and where to start, don’t hesitate to contact me for a free consultation on what we can do together. Click here if you would like to see what you should be doing each day on your platforms for optimal social media growth. I’ll show you which platforms would be best for your business and teach you how to use them more effectively so that they work as part of a cohesive whole rather than as separate entities. One thing is certain – if you’re not using social media at all in your marketing plan then it’s time to get started! If you’re struggling with how and where to start, don’t hesitate to contact me for a free consultation on what we can do together. I’ll show you which platforms would be best for your business and teach you how to use them more effectively so that they work as part of a cohesive whole rather than as separate entities. One thing is certain – if you’re not using social media at all in your marketing plan then it’s time to get started!