Dhariana Lozano — August 21, 2019 As time goes on it feels like organic reach online seems to continue to decline. In this post I’ve complied 10 solid principles that will help you fight the decline of organic reach on social media.
1. Know the algorithms
The first part to getting over a decline in organic reach on social media is to learn about the algorithms of each social media network you’re currently using. In a nutshell 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 will have their own nuances when it comes to algorithms, but think about these basic principles and how you can apply them to your social media content and marketing. Once you learn specifics you can think of creative ways to play into each element of the algorithms and use them in your favor.
2. Go Live
Have you tried going live on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter yet? Live videos on Facebook (and other networks) get a lot of interaction. Live Videos on Facebook have their own map showing all the live videos happening around the world, so there can be a big opportunity to get in front of new people. Let your followers get to know your team, tease upcoming events, film product demos or simply have fun with Q & A sessions.
3. Feature User Generated Content
According to a Stackla survey featured in a post in Social Media Today:
“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.”
So listen to the people and get going on featuring user generated content in your social media strategy to fight the decline in organic reach. Put into practice with my agency clients, we absolutely see that user generated pieces produce more engagement than original brand photography. The 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 can be a good strategy to fight the decline in organic reach on social media. Use your network-specific tools (for example Instagram Stories, poll stickers on Instagram Stories, Twitter Moments, etc.) to create more interest and dynamic within the social media network. It will disrupt just posting images and videos and gives followers an extra incentive to follow you on the network.
5. Put a budget behind content
The 5th method isn’t free but it’s yet another quick way to fight the decline in organic reach of your social media posts. Targeting will be your best friend here unless you like to spend money on bad results. Knowing your customer will be key as there are SO many different ways to target social ads..
6. Influencer marketing
Collaborating with influencers isn’t exactly instant – but it is an efficient way to fight the decline in organic social media reach. The secret is to find the right influencers. Influencers that are aligned with your target consumer will attract the right customers for your business. You will have to do your research and a little investigating, but once influencer campaigns are off the ground you’ll open the door to more traffic, eyes, and reach on social media.
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 slides you can get more reach for your account.
And of course the classics:
8. Quality content
Are you tired of hearing about the quality of your content yet? Let’s think beyond the actual look of your content, but think of quality as in adding value to your audience and giving them content they actually want and need. Conduct surveys (you could do this with Instagram or Twitter polls like we went over earlier in this post), 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
One sure way to fight the decline of organic reach is is remaining 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 favorite! But how can they help fight the decline in organic reach on social media? 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 use my own analytics trackers. Pay attention to what things are working and try to re-create those things and just stop spending time on things that don’t work.
Organic reach is not dead. But we are absolutely seeing a shift, and a decline in reach. Don’t blame 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 current following so more organic reach will follow.
This article was originally published on Dhariana Lozano’s blog here.
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