Is Organic Reach a Thing of the Past?

If you’re a business using social media, you’ve probably noticed that reaching new customers organically, without paying for advertising or boosting posts is becoming increasingly difficult.  

The hardest pill to swallow for online marketers is that this decline of organic reach has come about, well…organically, and in many ways, is a product of their own success. This is because as more content is created and shared online, individual posts have less time to make an impact before they are swallowed up by newer, more relevant content.  

So, is organic reach a thing of the past? And is there a way of outsmarting the system and raising the traction of your content without paying for the privilege?  

Facebook 

In 2016 organic reach for Facebook pages fell by a staggering 52 percent. Two dominating factors have paved the way for this decline; Firstly, following or liking a page doesn’t automatically mean that a user will then see every update from that page on their newsfeed.

In fact, in 2012, it was revealed that on average only 16 percent of ‘fans’ were seeing brand page posts on their news feeds. Facebook has openly discussed how it ‘filters’ newsfeeds in the past, stating that algorithms are in place to avoid overloading users with more content than they could possibly digest in a day. On average these algorithms filter newsfeeds to contain around 300 posts; these posts are selected according to how often a user interacts with particular people or pages, the popularity of the posts, i.e. how many likes or shares they have received, and whether a user has responded well to similar content in the past.  

The second factor is simply that social media is becoming oversaturated with businesses vying for consumer attention. To counteract this, Facebook has introduced measures to reduce the volume of customer-focused content. The site is now taking steps to limit posts that push products, use advertising language, or which re-hash the same old content on newsfeeds, meaning that if something comes across as an advert, it will lack visibility unless it is upgraded and posted as a paid Facebook Ad.  

Although these algorithms have been put in place to improve user experience, for SMEs with a limited fan base, it has made it incredibly difficult to reach out to new consumers. However, while it’s unlikely that these businesses will see their posts go viral organically, there are things they can do to boost visibility.  

Keep up to date with algorithms.  

Understanding how algorithms work is critical to outsmarting them. Algorithms rank content from friends and family first, information second, and entertainment third, so content needs to be either informative or entertaining to become visible. Recent algorithm updates also mean that posts with links that load slowly on mobile devices will show less in news feeds, as too will posts that appear ‘spammy’ or intentionally misleading.  

Feature Content from Others 

Many businesses make the mistake of thinking their content should be all about them, and forget that the core purpose of social media platforms is to be social. This means it’s important to share other people’s content. By monitoring your audience, you’ll be able to assess what it is that interests them and what they want to learn. By sharing content from external sources that serve these requirements, you’ll build up a reputation as being a source of knowledge and gain more visibility as a result.  

Share the Right Content 

Increasingly, people are turning to Facebook to learn about current affairs and expand their perspectives, think about how many conversations start with ‘I saw this thing on Facebook...’. When marketing your business and reaching new customers, it is up to you to utilise Facebook's shifting purpose. There is far more you can do than post photo’s of your products, you can share thought pieces related to your industry, blogs on emerging trends and popular videos. So leave the pretty pictures to Instagram, and focus on meaningful engagement with your audience.   

Twitter 

Organic reach works differently on Twitter. Unlike Facebook, your content will show in all your followers feeds and will be visible to anyone who searches for hashtags or keywords you have used. However, because of the speed at which Twitter moves and content being organised according to time, posts can quickly disappear under the sheer volume of new material being pushed out through the platform. You can overcome this by scheduling important tweets to go live multiple times and using social media management tools such as Sprout Social, which will queue your posts and publish them at peak times when traffic from your target audience is at its peak.  

Instagram 

Much like Twitter, your target audience can find your content when searching for particular hashtags and keywords. This means for maximum visibility you need to ensure you are using a rich selection of hashtags describing your brand, product and industry, as well as what’s in the images you are sharing. Unlike Twitter, however, Instagram recently moved away from displaying a reverse-chronological feed of posts, to driving the content it believes each user is most interested the top of their feeds. Since introducing this new algorithm, Instagram has reported people have been liking, commenting and engaging more with photos. However, it does mean that your company’s posts may not be seen instantly by everyone following you. This means you will need to experiment with finding the best time to post your photos and invest time into engaging with your audience.  

LinkedIn 

LinkedIn has up until now, displayed content in the order in which its posted. However after the professional networking site recently launched the option to upload video content directly to the site, there has been some talks among users that the site is now prioritising video content in feeds, and rumours that a new algorithm may be on its way. So the key takeaway? Push out your video content across LinkedIn; new algorithm or no new algorithm, there's nothing to lose!  

###

About my agency:

Brandlective is a digital marketing agency that specialises in content marketing, social media management and website development and maintenance. Typical clients that Brandlective work with SMEs looking to develop a strong online presence and increase their market reach. The firm advocate of creating an excellent online customer experience and boasts their own website that is clear, easy to navigate, visual and runs smoothly.