Why Organic Social Marketing Comes First

When times become challenging, marketing leaders need to make difficult decisions surrounding the budget. And, while many things have changed over the past year in the way brands market, it remains true that an organic social strategy is crucial for long-term ROI. A Facebook For Business survey shows that nearly 80% of respondents use Instagram to decide whether to buy a product or service. With this in mind, having a strong brand presence and community where decision-making happens isn’t an option, it is a necessity. Keep reading to learn why a strong organic strategy is non-negotiable to today’s top brands.

Achieving Brand Authenticity

In 2020, having a paid strategy isn’t enough to make the sale anymore. In recent studies, Nielsen reports that 92% of consumers trust the word of mouth and recommendations from friends above any forms of advertising. Having an organic strategy in place augments your paid efforts and instantly validates your brand.

Upon seeing an ad on social media that sparks interest, it’s natural for consumers to click through to the brand’s profile and check out their branded pages. Having a strategy in place on these channels that demonstrates brand voice, showcases community engagement, highlights stellar reviews, and posts relatable content only validates your brand authenticity. Making a good impression on a prospective customer through organic social pages may be what sets you apart from the 4,000–10,000 ads it is estimated a user sees every day. Your paid and organic strategies need to be harmonious in order to see efforts pay off.

Community Over Everything

One ad doesn’t turn a user into a brand advocate overnight. It takes a balance of brand content over time to turn someone into a loyal customer that not only purchases, but repeats purchases and refers you to other people. Think of it this way: an ad is the doorway for your target audience. They have the opportunity to peak inside your brand via organic social pages and get to know a bit about you. Over time, they keep entering through this door, perhaps asking a question about your product, engaging with your content or sharing it with a friend. That relationship you build with your consumer will ultimately be what drives them to come back and make the jump to purchase.

This ends up being mutually beneficial. The more you build a community and engage with your target audience in an authentic way, the more you find out about their values and the type of content that resonates with them. This will then help your brand better understand the type of content to put spend behind. REVOLVE is a great example of how mastering organic content performance can lead to optimizing paid campaign performance. Using insights from their organic strategy, the team saw a 6.8x return on ad spend, an increase of +70%.

Low Risk, High Reward

The beauty of social media and social entertainment is that every brand starts in the same place. No matter how big or small, it’s free to start a page and begin interacting with your community. In fact, the most successful brands on social aren’t those who have unlimited spend; organic social thrives off of witty content, an authentic brand voice, and honest communication.

The size of community and connection with your brand fans on social only depends on the effort and creativity of the marketing team behind it. Constantly evaluating and revisiting what content is working (and what isn’t working) involves time and dedication to your organic strategy but pays off with engagement and true growth over time.

An Organic-First Approach

While it might seem easier to put spending behind paid initiatives, organic social really is the heartbeat of your marketing strategy. Building brand authenticity and community is what will draw in those brand fans, create loyal customers, and develop a mutual understanding of each other which will inform your paid strategy. The only limit to your brand’s organic capabilities is the creativity of the marketers behind it. At the end of the day, fostering genuine relationships and developing a deep understanding of your audience will translate to success in the paid space over time.

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Originally published on December 11, 2020.