How to increase organic social media engagement

Overcoming the decline in organic social media engagement

If you’ve noticed a decline in your brand’s organic social media engagement, you’re not alone. On average, Facebook post engagement rates have dipped as low as 1.52%, and Instagram’s reach has plummeted more than 50% since 2015.

Several factors contribute to this decline including algorithm changes, shifting user behaviours, and content saturation. It’s challenging, and you might be questioning if it’s possible to generate meaningful engagement without paid ads, or the value of sharing organic social posts at all.

But consistently sharing organic content is very much still worth it for your brand. In this blog, I’ll explain how to create an organic social media strategy that engages your audience, including content ideas and business benefits.

What is an organic social media strategy?

In short, your organic social media strategy is how you plan to grow your brand’s presence without spending money on ads, posts or shares. There are various types of content you can share, including:

Photos
Videos
Blogs
Memes and gifs
Infographics
Reviews

For organic social media to be successful, your content has to naturally resonate with your audience. Think of it like a plant – nurture your audience well, and it’ll naturally grow.

Why do I need an organic social media strategy?

It’s a cost-effective way to reach your audience

Generally speaking, organic social media costs less than paid advertising because you don’t need an ad budget to share posts and engage customers. You can leverage existing resources and start posting whenever, making it a powerful way to gradually build your brand online.

You can showcase your brand’s personality

Organic social is the perfect opportunity to promote your brand’s personality, team and culture. You can shape your brand’s narrative, tell your story and become more relatable. As a result, you’ll connect with your audience and build a community, leading to increased sales and customer loyalty.

You’ll stay front of mind

I’ll use an example of a new burger place that opened down the road (because it’s front of mind). When the restaurant opened they followed me on Instagram. I followed them back because they have an excellent Instagram game. They pack their feed with high-quality photos of tasty burgers and sides, team photos and local stories.

After a couple of weeks I booked a table and the meal didn’t disappoint. Can they say my booking is a direct result of organic social media? Probably not, but without it, I’d be missing out on awesome burgers and they’d be missing out on a loyal customer.

This is just one example of a small, local restaurant but the same logic applies for B2B and B2C brands. Nurture your followers, stay front of mind, and keep them coming back for more.

How do you create an organic social media strategy?

Now I’ve explained why organic social is important, here’s how to create a social media strategy that gets meaningful engagement.

Set realistic goals

Choose your social media channel(s) and set realistic SMART goals to measure and justify success. ‘Going viral next week’ is unlikely, but ‘Increasing Instagram engagement rate by 5% this month’ is more doable. This will motivate you too because it gives you something to aim towards and hold yourself accountable to.

Also remember that social media engagement measures shares, likes and comments, so consider these when setting your SMART goals.

Plan and schedule content

Plan, create and schedule your content ahead of time. There’s plenty of platforms you can use including Hootsuite, Loomy and Canva, each with different features and pricing. You can even schedule content using some social media platforms themselves, like Facebook and Instagram. This will save you time and stop you pushing organic social media to one side.

Share content your audience wants to see

Consistency is key to generating organic social media engagement. But there’s no point in posting every day unless you know who you’re posting to. Find out what your customers like, what matters to them and what they really want for your brand. Share engaging posts that align and make them want to follow you.

Example: If you’re an e-commerce brand selling make-up, your followers only want to see photos of mascara and foundation, right? Wrong. They want to see how your make-up looks on real people. They want to watch videos of customers applying your make-up so they can learn how to do it themselves.

Here’s three organic social media content ideas to help boost engagement

Short and snappy videos

Over 54% of marketers say that video is the most valuable content for social media success, so lean into it. Film short videos of your product or service, and what goes on ‘behind the scenes’. You might find filming challenging, especially if you’re not used to it, but video is the future and a great way to drive engagement.

User-generated content (UGC)

Build trust by sharing UGC such as photos, images, and reviews about your brand on your company page. Showcasing real customer experiences will make your audience more likely to engage and ultimately, convert. Here’s a great example of UGC on our client Dcypher’s Instagram page:

Reactive ‘on trend’ posts

Share reactive content to engage your followers and expand your reach. From jumping on Instagram Reels and TikToks to writing thought-leadership articles, getting involved keeps your brand relevant. If your followers enjoy your content, they’re more likely to share it on their own profiles too.

Engage engage engage

You can’t just post on social media, you have to engage too. Get involved in conversations by commenting on other posts and sharing your followers’ content on your own channels. Ask questions to spark conversations and encourage audience engagement. This is the perfect opportunity to shape your brand’s tone of voice and personality, so make sure it’s consistent.

Report, learn and go again

Create a social media report to keep track of your organic growth and measure your performance against your goals. Analyse and build on the data, pivoting your activity, content types and strategy accordingly.

You can access key metrics like engagement rates, reach, mentions and shares within most social media platforms. You’ll soon learn which content types resonate and the best days and times to post.

So hopefully now you have a better understanding of how to increase organic social media engagement. Just remember to be consistent, relevant, and have fun with it! Nail that, and you’re well on your way.

A bit about Reckless
We’re an e-commerce digital marketing agency with offices in Liverpool, Chester and Manchester. We help brands grow through custom websites, bespoke software development, paid media, SEO and online marketplaces. If you need a hand taking your e-commerce brand to the next level, get in touch.