If you’re in digital marketing, you’ve probably noticed it’s not a walk in the park to achieve a high social media organic reach. Many factors on Facebook or any other social network determine if your posts even get seen by your followers, let alone shared.
Sure, there are paid advertisements, but there is a risk involved, and it can become costly to grow your page significantly – and then you still have to do everything we’re mentioning below to keep those followers anyway.
Once you post actively, you’ll realize that people don’t magically appear as we may initially hope. It takes strategy, great content, and consistency to grow your pages.
In this blog post, we will go over the top things you can do to expand your social media organic reach right now.
1) Think of social media organic reach like SEO
You want to treat your social media organic reach like that pesky SEO you’ve been dealing with on your blog and website.
The cool thing is – getting to the top on social media isn’t nearly as tricky as getting to the top on Google. Think keywords, think content, think the top of the search engine. To do this, you want to use hashtags in your posts on Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram.
These hashtags work as keywords and help you appear when people search on those platforms.
Treat your social media organic reach like the traffic from your SEO strategy, and do your hashtag research beforehand.
So Use Hashtags…
Hashtags can do two critical tasks for your marketing efforts. First off, they can help others find you more easily. When someone adds a hashtag to a post, it becomes searchable with the keyword they used, which means if a user is interested in finding posts on a topic and searching that keyword, your post will come up.
Hashtags also allow you to find and connect with your target audience. Find a few hashtags that resonate with your brand or that your audience already uses. After that, start networking with them by introducing yourself and giving helpful information to them.
Below is an example of using the GalaxyFold hashtag from a regular user (called @username to keep him anonymous) and Samsung. The user uses the hashtag to get some engagement in his post.
Every big-name social network uses a hashtag feature since social networking users enjoy searching for content and meeting people who post about their interests.
If you use Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook, hashtags are a great way to find and attract your target audience.
But Use Hashtags Strategically…
To get very strategic, look at how frequently those hashtags are used. If the search page is covered every 10 minutes, you probably won’t find much fame from being there. However, you will get many likes from bots, be careful.
You want people to be using them, but not so much that you can’t even click a post without refreshing the page. If the page fills every few hours or every day, you may find more luck, and you can stay at the top by reusing the hashtag daily.
2) Everything You Post Needs a Meaning Behind It
Regarding social media, you must be very careful to continue building and showing off your brand. Branding doesn’t stop at your website. The more meaningful your posts are, the more success you will find in social media.
If you are posting a quote, it should resonate with your audience and have a specific purpose. If you post a promotional post, it needs a particular call to action and reason.
Whenever you post anything, you need to ask yourself what you want your audience to feel or do after seeing your content.
3) Chose the Right Type of Content
Just because you’re at the top of a search or a newsfeed, it doesn’t mean people will click through to your profile. The post has to rock.
So, make your content stand out, which means making it high quality.
Use Video, Image, and Text.
While social media is one of the best ways to network and share your content, you must remember to share what is helpful to your audience. When you post knowledge and information about your industry, people are more likely to learn something new and feel the need to engage.
It would be best to ensure the post’s written content is informative and serves a purpose. If you post daily, you can start watching what posts bring in more likes and followers and use them as templates to speed up your marketing.
Using images can help your text flow quickly. Several apps allow you to deal with your artwork without being a designer. We give you an example below called Design Wizard.
A big thing in social media is video. It attracts the audience’s attention and increases engagement. If the future is video, so the future is now. All of the leading social platforms have integrated video. Check here an article about factors to consider when creating your video strategy.
According to Twitter, Tweets with video attract ten times more engagements than Tweets without video. According to Statista, 85% of Internet users in the USA watched some video monthly in 2018.
So you better start using videos in your content.
Speak through visual content
Images are still the number one content shared on Social Media, so using the right images is still the best technique.
It’s undoubtedly the first element that determines the impact of your post. Good social media images stand out and draw attention to your followers’ news feeds.
While using images, you should share pictures, quotes, recipes, daily tips, products, or promotions, depending on your business. A motivational quote using an image is a typical example of engaging content on Instagram.
Another great way to improve your social media posts is using infographics, a graphic representation of information, including data, processes, text, or statistics. Specialists say an infographic is 30 times more likely to be read than a textual article.
Use images that express what you’re trying to convey. Also, keep your images appealing and relevant to your target audience.
Remember that you don’t need to buy all of your images. Several excellent free image banks for commercial or personal use with high-quality pictures like Freepik, Flickr, Pixabay, Gratisography, Publicdomainarchive, or Free-images.
4) Paint Your Post with Colors
According to specialists, the psychology of color related to persuasion is one of the most exciting and controversial aspects of marketing. The brands that get the most engagement are the ones that make the best color choices.
In Joe Hallock’s study about color, he mentions that our preference for a specific color can be related to how we feel in any situation and even how we remember particular experiences.
In this study, he mentions different preferences in gender and age. Just as a curiosity, Blue was the preferred color in any case (57% of men and 35% of women).
Before you roll out your social media campaign, select a color synonymous with your brand. Choose a color that represents you in the social media world.
Your choice of color not only represents your brand but also influences your followers on a psychological level.
Consider choosing a color that speaks to your target market. If you’re not getting enough engagement, reconsider looking for another color. Choosing the right color can improve your social media posts and engage your users.
5) Make your content easy and appealing to read
Daniel Kahneman, who is a Nobel Prize-winning psychologist, said:
“A general ‘law of least effort’ applies to cognitive and physical exertion. The law asserts that if there are several ways of achieving the same goal, people will eventually gravitate to the least demanding course of action.”
Keep your social media content simple to show your audience they can do something.
Break down the hard stuff in easy-to-digest chunks of information so that they can easily and quickly take action.
Usually, posts with less text also help to be more attractive and fast to read. People want to rapidly understand the message to engage right away or start reading the next post. So you must be concise and send the message in a few seconds.
Another relevant advice to consider is to make the best of your headline. Headlines that call attention usually have numbers and trigger words such as what, why, how, or when.
Strong adjectives usually can call much attention as well, like “Amazing,” Fun,” or “Top.” The last tip you should consider is to give an impression of the scarcity of time or quantity, like “last pieces in stock” or “valid offer for the first 50 clients”.
Try using this mentioned advice on your headline, like:
“How to use 7 fun techniques to grow your sales.“
or
“What Are The Top 10 Things People Say They Regret? Learn From It Before It’s Too Late”
These words will trigger their desire and maybe would convince them to engage. Trigger words are powerful, and we’ll talk more about them in a little while.
6) Use Trigger Words
Mark Twain said,
“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”
Words have power. The words that you use determine to what degree people take action.
The right emotional trigger words can take a dull and lifeless message to a new level.
Typically, the six words that work well are who, what, when, where, why, and how.
There are several specialists out there showing the best trigger words you can use. The conclusion is that there is no perfect formula, and you have to consider what best fits your audience and your goal.
Therefore, you should follow some necessary steps before applying the right trigger words:
- Decide the action your users have to take (like commenting on your post, sharing your post, or following your page).
- Define how you want to get your user’s attention (make them curious, inspired, motivated, relaxed, etc.).
- Use call-to-action words to trigger and motivate the user to perform what you want.
7) Connect Your Social Media Posts with emotions
Social media posts with strong emotions can help you connect with readers well, especially when they are happy.
Happiness
In the conclusion of a study run by a select group of scientists using data from millions of Facebook users, it was presented how the rainfall directly influenced the emotional content of the users in their status messages but also affected the status messages of one or two of their friends in other cities, who are not experiencing rainfall.
That’s an exciting relationship showing that positive emotional content can lead to positive leads for your company. Aside from happiness, another three emotions will make a post engaging.
Sadness, fear/surprise, and anger/disgust.
The report published by the IPA databank shows that campaigns with purely emotional content performed twice as well as those with only rational content.
To make the most of emotions in social media, share valuable content with your followers. Show a happy and friendly brand that is helpful and generous. Moreover, naturally, you will draw people not only to your post but also to your brand.
Check below how engaging this post from Nike was with more than 9 Million views, headline:
“Don’t if your dreams are crazy. Ask if they’re crazy enough”
These psychology tips can help you connect with your audience on an emotional level.
You can create a conversation and improve your engagement with your followers. Just be strategic on each element that you use for your social media posts, and be aware of these techniques that you can use for your business.
8) Chose the Right Audience
As a business owner, social media marketing is critical.
While your website acts as your home base, the best way to get out and increase your social media organic reach worldwide is to get on-post content for your audience.
However, with millions of accounts and users posting tons of content, it can easily get lost in the crowd.
After posting content with no engagement, social media can become discouraging. It is essential to realize that social media is not about self-promotion and waiting for users to find you. You must go out, find your audience, and help them, so they know you exist.
With the reach limitation of your Social Media posts, choosing the right audience can help you increase engagement, and everybody knows that this can help algorithms increase your reach.
Below you can see how Facebook lets you organically choose the audience to see your posts. Go to the settings of your Facebook page.
9) Try Something New
While everyone shares social media rules to follow, it is crucial not to be afraid to try something new.
As we mentioned earlier, the competition on social media is high. If you spend all your time copying other users and playing it safe, your brand and profile will never ‘wow’ anyone.
With all of this in mind, keep your social media fun, network, reach out to other users and post the best content you can. When you follow these three steps, social success will come.
Apple, for example, started using realistic scenarios and original videos from animal life. Successfully posts get thousands of engagements.
10) Get New followers, but remember, nobody wants to be somewhere they aren’t wanted
Have you ever felt like you’re somewhere that nobody misses you otherwise? That’s strictly how social media works.
If you want followers, you must genuinely care that they are there. There are two simple ways you can do this.
First, you can thank and follow back the people who follow you.
Make them feel special with a special message, compliment them on something, or bring up a commonality. Maybe you notice your users love dogs, and you can share that you have a pooch.
Some tools can help you increase your following, such as Social Bee.
Recently Twitter has started blocking apps that help users follow other users with automatic features that increase this process’s speed. Other social media platforms, such as Instagram, already have a limited number of users following in a short period.
You can and should also engage with followers and potential followers.
By liking and commenting on other people’s content you are showing, you aren’t just another business out there looking for numbers. People love attention from companies and brands. Give it to them!
11) Stay consistent
Most people will go to a social media profile and check the consistency and relevancy of your content.
If you post too often and it’s random content, you will be spam on their newsfeed. If you never post, you will be a hidden account they never hear from.
Posting quality content daily or multiple times per week will allow people to see you as an active, helpful account to follow.
Remember, with the right strategy, you can grow your account organically. It doesn’t take vast amounts of money to go far. When you follow these steps, you will get results.
What’s the optimal number of posts?
Use social media to build your brand’s voice. How do you become consistent in social media? According to the Buffer App, the optimal number of weekly Facebook posts is between five and 10. On Twitter, three times daily.
Posting regularly is imperative, but your content should also reflect your identity as a brand. Post content that is relevant to your niche.
However, you can break this rule. Once in a while, post content that will deviate from your brand, like holiday greetings or motivational quotes. While it’s OK to differ from your brand’s content, be mindful when posting them. Be careful not to over-post content that’s irrelevant.
12) Become Active in Social Communities
There are many types of social communities out there that you can participate in and grow your following.
Social communities are all about networking and meeting others and are among the most efficient ways.
Finding Facebook and LinkedIn groups that connect to your business, local area, and interests are great ways to start meeting people and helping them by answering questions and asking them!
Suppose you are a business owner or digital marketer looking to learn more about marketing and growing an audience. In that case, hundreds of communities focus on sharing social media tips and tricks.
Joining one of these communities would be an excellent opportunity to introduce your business, share what you know, and learn from others. In many cases, Facebook even incentive you to open your page’s community to increase your reach since groups have unique notifications.
Another type of social community you can join is Twitter chats. Many big-name users and brands host Twitter chats in almost every industry.
Start searching for chats that you have expertise in and participate in, which allows you to introduce yourself and network and answer questions and provide advice and content to potential audience members.
13) Focus on Your Customer
In social media, it’s not about you. It’s all about your customers.
If you are tempted to post only promotional content, please stop. Not only that, this strategy won’t work, but it would hurt your brand as it does not provide value to them.
How do you focus on your followers? Find and share content that your customers would want to see.
Also, sometimes, mix it with your promotional content. Limit your promotional posts. If you want, your social media organic reach will decrease.
14) Chat-Friendly (engage with your followers)
Social media means relationships. So one of the best ways to cultivate relationships with your followers is through engagement.
Interact with your current and future customers. Make them feel valued. Complaints about your brand are usual. However, don’t take them lightly because how you handle complaints will reflect who you are as a brand.
Approach them well and consider every complaint an opportunity to show off your customer service skills. You will encounter a gazillion of failures but don’t hide from them.
15) Compensated Minimal Investments
Because you don’t have a big budget for your online marketing strategies, consider investing a small amount of your money into various social media platforms.
Let us say this once again; social media is very cost-effective. You will be amazed at where your $100 budget could bring you.
Don’t use the same strategy on all your social media platforms because each has strengths and weaknesses. Each has its native language. Your Facebook approach may not work on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc. Bottom-line is for every social media platform, there is a unique strategy.
You don’t want to burn your money for anything. Facebook is a pay-to-play platform, meaning you must pay extra bucks to see more engagement with your content.
Twitter can provide you with considerable organic engagement, but it allows you to post sponsored tweets. Like Facebook, you can increase your exposure and engagement rate by supporting a tweet.
In Conclusion
You have just launched your business online and laid out your online marketing strategies. You hoped that people would instantly notice your brand and profits would increase. You want to be seen by more prospects. Also, you want to develop a community of loyal customers.
However, there’s a big wall in front of you that says, “Hold it right there!” The challenge is that you’re not only competing in your industry but millions of marketing information that consumers are exposed to every single second.
Plus, you don’t have the money to invest heavily in digital marketing. So what do you do? Be social and start using social media strategically.
Many marketers can do better when it comes to connecting with their fans if they start using psychology techniques. The success of your social media engagement and reach is determined by how well your posts trigger action from your audience.
In this article, you discovered how you could make your brand stand out and get your message through the noisy world of social media. We listed several methods that can make your social media organic reach grow.
Although growing your social media organic reach is challenging while being tied to a shoestring budget, we recommend following these methods and seeing your brand stand out from the crowd.
Christian has over ten years of experience in marketing agencies. Currently, he has been dedicating his time to a tech startup and also writing for major publications. He loves podcasts and reading to keep up with the latest trends in marketing.
I loved all of the points you made.
I am often blogging, and I really appreciate your content. The article piqued my interest. Thanks!
The article highlights the significance of authenticity and storytelling in capturing the attention of social media users. Overall, it offers practical advice and inspires readers to rethink their social media strategies to establish a strong organic presence and connect with their target audience effectively.
Yes Robert, that was the intention. It ended up becoming a long article to be guide for social media posts.