Organic reach is a social media metric used to assess the number of unique accounts (people) that have seen a company’s post or another piece of content you shared on social media networks like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or Tiktok. It doesn't cover the number of accounts reached with paid advertising and other paid promotional tools.
In this article, you’ll learn why organic reach is essential and get to know the difference between organic and paid reach. We’ll also uncover how to boost organic reach on social media platforms.
Why is organic reach important?
It helps brands establish brand awareness, gain new prospects, increase customer base, encourage more conversions, and build long-lasting relationships with clients. With 4.9 billion users, social media platforms have become the perfect channels for communicating with potential clients and promoting your products to a wide audience. Social media allows you to expand your reach and enter new markets. Organic reach is a metric to evaluate how many accounts you managed to reach and promote your products organically.
The more people see your post, Story, or Reel on social media, the bigger your target audience. As a result, you can experience an increase in prospects interested in your product, more conversions, and better brand recognition. By gaining followers, you target people that comply with your buyer persona, attract leads, and reach new audiences and markets.
Creating organic content for social media is a cost-effective way of generating leads. The bigger the organic reach, the more prospects you can obtain without spending costs on customer acquisition.
When you have many interactions with your brand on social media, such as likes, comments, and shares, you can establish trust and credibility. Since prospects pay attention to the visibility of your brand and the comments people leave, it might work for you. This fact will instantly influence prospects’ decisions when they consider your brand. Moreover, it means you have a strong community that adores and supports your company.
Now that you know why you should care about your organic reach on social media, it’s time to find out the difference between organic and paid reach.
Organic Reach vs Paid Reach
In this section, we’ll make the difference between organic and paid reach clear. You’ll find out how to attain business success with these two approaches.
Organic reach is a social media metric encompassing the number of unique accounts the brand interacts with by using posts, Reels, Live, IGTV, and Stories on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or TikTok without paid marketing tools. It enables you to build brand awareness, reach more prospects, establish trust and credibility, increase conversions, and attract more followers. Organic reach is an essential metric that empowers you to interact with leads and customers without spending additional costs on promotion. Posts and reels are promoted organically because of the likes, comments, and shares.
Paid reach is a metric that allows you to measure the number of unique accounts that see your content promoted through paid marketing tools (paid social media ads or sponsored content). Paid ads help reach, interact with, and convert potential customers. Paid advertising allows your brand to communicate with prospects who haven’t interacted with your company yet and educate them about your product. It’s an easy way to reach new people and build a bigger customer base.
Now that the difference is clear, it’s time to uncover some helpful tips for increasing your organic reach on Instagram and Facebook.
How to increase organic reach on social media?
You can reach potential customers without having to spend advertising dollars. In this section, we’ll unveil some tips for increasing organic reach on Instagram and Facebook.
Instagram users make it a powerful marketing tool and platform for communication with the target audience. You can promote your product through the network using effective methods organically. Let’s find out what you need to do to boost your organic reach and attain key business goals.
1. Use hashtags specific to your industry
With Instagram hashtags, you can categorize or label content and make it more discoverable. They enable you to reach a wider audience that has never interacted with you. Even more, these people are already interested in the industry your product is related to. Consider using hashtags in the caption of your Instagram post, Reel, or Story. As a result, you’ll expand your audience. Make up a list of hashtags relevant to your industry and use them whenever you need it.
Check out how a cafe uses hashtags to its advantage.
2. Publish posts consistently
Consistency is rule number one when it comes to publishing posts on Instagram. To increase visibility and engagement, consider sharing posts once a day. However, you can still adjust your schedule based on your brand and audience’s preferences. Instagram algorithms will positively influence your brand if you post quality content regularly. Consider using the Insights feature if you hold a business Instagram account. This analytics empowers you with information about your audience, including when they are most active.
3. Create Reels
Reels are short 15-second videos that contain important information for users. Since Instagram prioritizes Reels content, it’s important to incorporate this marketing tool. Besides, reels are shareable, so customers can send your short videos to their friends and family. This way, they can promote your account for free. You can share your products in a creative way and increase engagement.
In the screenshot below, you can see a Reel from Rhode.
4. Make Stories
Instagram Stories is a great tool for reaching several business goals: improve brand visibility, generate new prospects, interact with existing followers, improve brand transparency, and receive feedback on your products. With this marketing tool, you can implement real-time marketing and share real-time videos about your product.
Charlotte Tilbury informs about the new product release through its Instagram Story.
5. Conduct giveaways
You can draw attention to your brand and encourage prospects to participate with giveaways. Your current customers can become brand advocates and share information about your giveaway with their friends and family. As a result, your post will have a wider organic reach. Besides, it will promote brand awareness. More people will get to know your brand and explore it. Your post will have more impressions and followers. Giveaways allow you to increase your customer base and boost conversions.
Below you can see an example of a giveaway.
6. Write a good bio and include a link to your website
When users look through posts in their feeds, they can come across your content. If you sell products and want to develop your brand, having a proper bio is crucial. Make sure to include the name of your company, your industry, and a short description of your company. Remember that adding a link to your company website is a must. This is how prospects can find out more about your brand and product. Consider building a bio link page for your social media networks with SendPulse for free. This way, you’ll be able to house all essential links to your company on a single custom landing page.
Below you can see how a good bio should look like.
7. Use IGTV
IGTV empowers you to improve the visibility of your brand and products, educate your audience, and entertain prospective customers. You can build a following base and a strong community around your brand. You can establish trust and credibility by providing answers to users’ questions and ensuring them with quality content. These videos, up to one hour long, help you explain all the details about your product and company in general. You can introduce your values, mission, and vision.
Below you can see how Mejuri uses IGTV to introduce their jewelry to potential customers.
8. Collaborate with influencers
According to statistics, 61% of users listen to and trust recommendations from opinion leaders. Influencer marketing contributes to organic reach growth. Cooperation with opinion leaders is a great way of reaching people in your industry who haven’t interacted with your brand yet. Influencer recommendations can encourage leads to explore your company’s account and the products you offer. If your product is interesting to them, they can consider a purchase.
Below you can see an example of a paid partnership of Selena Gomez and Puma.
Facebook is also an effective marketing platform for promoting your product to a wide audience. It’s time to review some useful techniques to reach more unique accounts organically on Facebook.
1. Optimize your content for the platform
Content created for Facebook differs from the one you write for Instagram. That’s why you need to optimize posts for the platform. First, think of unique captions that differ from your Instagram posts. Don’t use irrelevant hashtags. Secondly, avoid sharing links that lead to the external source. It’s better to keep people on Facebook. You can use content formats that don’t require users to follow the link. Add infographics, statistics, and videos that are placed on your page. Thirdly, encourage discussions. Consider sharing posts where users can share their thoughts and points of view. This way, you’ll introduce your brand and increase impressions.
Below you can see how Burger King encourages comments under its Facebook post organically.
2. Develop a schedule for content posting
Analyze the time of the highest user activity to identify the best timing for content posting. Work with your team to create a schedule and publish posts consistently. It will enable you to ensure the visibility of your content and prospects’ interaction with your brand.
3. Create videos
Educational video is a great tool for gaining views, establishing brand awareness, and bringing value to customers. That’s why consider developing videos related to your industry. They will solve customer problems and encourage purchasing with your company. Videos are shareable, so they can go viral among your potential customers fast. Moreover, the information in the video is easier to understand.
In the screenshot below, you can see an example of a video Kayak shares with subscribers.
4. Use Facebook Live
When you go live with your subscribers, it allows you to engage with them in real-time. Exposure and strong relationships with customers are two more benefits live can bring. You can livestream directly through Facebook. Let users share their reactions and comments.
5. Share posts on Instagram to Facebook
When you create content for Instagram, you can make use of platforms’ features and instantly post content to two networks at once. It will help you reduce the workload on your team and stay engaged with your target audience.
Congrats, now you know what organic traffic is and why it’s essential. Hope that the tips above will help you reach more unique accounts on Facebook and Instagram. SendPulse will help you create a quality bio link page that contains all of your priority links and communication channels and house them on a single custom landing page. Consider using chatbots for Instagram and Facebook to improve customer satisfaction.
References:
- This article defines the term and uncovers how to increase organic reach on social media.
- In this article, you can explore some more tips on how to increase organic reach on social media.
Last Updated: 13.07.2023
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