Much like the old adage of the tree falling in the woods, is your marketing content really “good” if no one is around to see it?  The latest reach numbers are in; for pages with large followings of more than 500k likes, the organic reach of social posts on Facebook is only 2%. It’s a familiar pain we all experience: your marketing team comes up with a brilliant campaign and when you launch that content on your social media pages, hardly anyone likes, comments, shares or even acknowledges it. You need your consumers to see your content on social media. You need to improve your organic reach.

Fortunately, there are a few simple implementations that can grow your content reception and shares.

Author’s Note: We wrote this post back in 2017, and in 2022, we hate to say it, but organic reach hasn’t gotten any better. This is true across all social platforms including classics like Facebook and Instagram as well as newcomers like TikTok.  As such, we’re updating this post with even more helpful tips for improving social media organic reach.

7 Ways to Improve Your Organic Reach on Social Media

1) Cross Promotion

One of the first things to accomplish is to create a successful cross-promotion campaign. Your consumers need to know that social media is the first place they should be looking for your latest and greatest products and services. While your customers may be aware that you are on social media, they need to know that your social media content is worth watching. According to HubSpot, your social media presence should be promoted everywhere – from your storefront to your business cards and everything in between. Typing in your social media handle should be second nature to your biggest fans. Remember, if your fans come to your page, they’ll see all of your posts. Don’t let the algorithm gods determine who sees and doesn’t see your content.

2) Strike a Partnership with a Publisher

While you are working on your internal cross-promotion, seek out potential partnerships with publications who know how to put their PR departments to work. Utilize the social media fan base that these publications have already built up and work with them to promote each other’s content. The greater the reach, the better – so you have something to offer to your new partner as well: an audience that is used to your message, not theirs. Strike a partnership that will encourage them to share your content. Your potential partners don’t need to be limited to publishers. A partnership with a local micro-influencer or PR firm would help get your content promoted and improve your organic reach.

3) Employee Advocacy

You already have some of the best social media drivers at your disposal: your employees. Your employees are committed to the overall success of their company, so put them to work in a new way! Openly ask your employees to share your latest content.  According to Inc.com, companies can expect a 25% increase in leads and quintuple the web traffic when an employee advocacy program is in place. 

According to the same article, 50% of employees already tout the good word about their employer on social media. The key is to get your carefully created content into their eagerly tweeting hands. Don’t be afraid to make this fun! Company-wide social challenges can be enjoyable for everyone and rewarding for your bottom line.

4) Customer Advocacy

In addition to employee advocacy programs, consumer advocacy can prove just as valuable. Both groups give a personal testament to your message. When your employees and customers are sharing your content, they are validating that content. They are also pushing that content to their social channels, amplifying the content’s reach.

An advocacy program is great to have, but can seem like a challenge to start, particularly if you have never jumped into a program like this before. SocialToaster specializes in starting advocacy programs and building them from the ground up so that your program completely meets your organic reach needs. Our clients typically see returns of 10x – 20x on their earned media once an advocacy program has been implemented.

5) Mix Up Your Content 

Your content strategy shouldn’t be one-dimensional. You should have different types of content to keep things interesting, and you should also switch up the format from time to time. For example, if you typically publish single-image posts, try mixing in some carousels or videos. This will not only help you reach a wider audience, but it will also keep your current audience engaged.

Also, take advantage of each platform’s newer content publishing opportunities:

• Instagram Reels
• Facebook Stories
• YouTube Shorts
• etc.

Each of these content pieces has its own algorithm that determines its discoverability. Use this fact to your advantage to increase engagement on your content, and through that, the reach of your posts.

6) Use Data to Your Advantage

Data should be one of your best friends when it comes to improving the reach of your organic posts. Through consistent data analysis, you can improve your social media presence by:

• Identifying the content topics that are most popular with your audience.
• The preferred media type – videos, images, etc.
• The best time of day to post your content.
• Your most profitable channels.
• And so much more.

Don’t feel like you have to invest in an expensive social analytics platform to get these insights. Almost every social media platform has native reporting and measurement capabilities. Familiarize yourself with these systems and leverage the data to get more reach out of your posts.

7) Repurpose Your Content

If you have a piece of content that performed well, don’t be afraid to repurpose it. You can turn a blog post into an infographic, or an audio clip into a video. This will help you get more mileage out of your best content, and it will also help you reach people who consume content in different ways.

SocialToaster Helps Drive ROI On Your Content

Your content marketing is an investment. It can be the most valuable tool in your arsenal, provided that your content makes it to the appropriate audience. Every share of your content through a social media channel is a good thing for your brand.

Want to learn more? SocialToaster can help create completely customized advocacy marketing programs for your business to increase your organic reach and reception of your marketing content. Get the results you want today – contact us at 855.62.TOAST, send us an email, or request a free demo!