The days of using social media to look up old high school classmates are long gone. In fact, 91% of marketers consider social media an important and lucrative business and networking platform.
As a business owner, it's important to expand your marketing strategy as widely as possible. And with 4.74 billion people using social media worldwide, there's ample room for you to engage with new customers while building relationships with your organic audience.
The benefits of organic social media are many. But below, we'll focus on 8 unique benefits you can expect to gain from implementing an organic social media marketing strategy. Read on!
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Paid social media may help you increase brand awareness while reaching new audiences. But sponsored messages can only get you so far.
Organic posts, on the other hand, allow you to build relationships with your target audience while providing them with valuable content.
90% of social media users use social platforms as a means of communicating with brands and businesses.
So, if you're only funneling your money into paid social media campaigns but aren't following up with customer service, then those new audiences you've reached are bound to jump ship.
Luckily, an organic social media strategy can help you build lasting relationships with customers. Then, when you decide to invest in a paid social media strategy, those new customers will see why your existing customers decided to stick around.
Customer loyalty is a coveted thing in today's day and age. After all, there are so many different brands out there for customers to choose from!
But through an organic social media strategy, you can establish your business as one of the few examples of a well-run operation.
50% of marketers list brand loyalty as one of the top goals of their content marketing strategies.
And that's because relevant content is the way to a customer's heart. Coupled with exceptional customer service, valuable organic content can hook customers like nothing else.
That's because brands are expected to be more than brands in 2023. They're an extension of customers' values, beliefs, and ideals.
So when you go to share an organic post, you're not just speaking directly to customers within your organic reach. You're speaking to the greater masses of potential customers who will likely come to view your brand as a valuable hub for high-quality products, content, and service.
Engagement is the goal of all marketing campaigns. But don't think you have to be a large-scale business in order for your organic social media to facilitate engagement that's worthwhile.
Instagram business accounts with less than 10,000 followers have the highest engagement rate of 0.75%.
That's likely because such small numbers equate to a close-knit sense of community. So, even if you're a small business that's just starting out, don't underestimate the power of your organic efforts.
Laying the foundation for engagement and community-driven social posts is a surefire way to establish trust and credibility amongst your audiences.
Organic social media should not be viewed as a mutually exclusive digital strategy. In fact, pairing paid and organic social efforts with other marketing strategies can be particularly effective - so long as you work with experts in the field.
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a burgeoning industry that is only growing in today's digital age. With 68% of all online experiences beginning with a search engine, it's no wonder that folks are clamoring to work with the best in the business.
Consider this stat for a moment:
Google receives 94.47% of traffic directly, 2.56% of which comes from social media.
While this may seem like a measly percentage, this doesn't change the fact that an organic social media strategy can solidify your organic efforts on any given social platform. Now, think of what this means when you combine your organic social media efforts with a tried and true SEO strategy.
From 2020-2021, we managed to 35x one luxury beauty company's organic visitor growth, resulting in 605 unique organic sales in 10 months and ranking them for 6,500 keywords in Google's Top 100 results.
With results like these, it's no wonder why 94% of our clients continue to work with us for 1+ years. At the end of the day, expanding your organic strategy to merge both social media and SEO best practices can give your business the competitive edge it needs to dominate all digital channels.
While we've been talking up organic social media over paid social media, this isn't to say that a paid social media campaign can't deliver some impressive results.
28% of Internet users have found new products and services through paid advertising.
But remember what we said at the beginning of this blog post: paid social media can only do so much. When you lay the groundwork with organic social media, your social ads will become all the more effective. Still, it's best not to rely on paid promotion alone.
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Any type of paid campaign is obviously going to require that you reach deep into your pockets. But did you know:
Ad spending on social media is projected to reach over $268 billion in 2023.
Paid posts can help you with things like lead generation and reaching out to your target audience. But with an organic social media strategy, you don't have to pay a thing.
Reserving your funds for a strategically placed paid social media content scheme will save you more money in the long run. Paid social media can offer you a lot, but it shouldn't cause you to go belly up before you even get to establish your organic presence.
Connecting with customers through organic social media can offer a number of unique benefits. But perhaps the most lucrative from a business standpoint is the type of content customers are able to generate for you.
87% of brands are using user-generated content to share authentic content with their customers.
Not only does this take the burden of creating new content off your shoulders. But user-generated content acts as both an organic advertisement and a customer testimonial.
Think of how many reviews you scour before deciding to purchase a product or service. With user-generated content, you can maximize your organic social strategy while giving customers exactly what they want.
Paid social media can be effective. But how many ads do you actually believe over authentic customer testimonials?
90% of consumers find user-generated content useful and believe what existing customers have to say about brands over paid ads.
So as you bolster user-generated content, you're more able to reach customers by virtue of the fact that you're not targeting them with paid social strategies. Instead, you're simply promoting the fact that people already love your product or service.
These types of testimonials are integral for establishing your brand as a credible and trustworthy source. Anyone can pay for anything these days. But getting authentic customer reviews to do your advertising for you speaks volumes more than any advertising campaign can.
We've talked a lot about how organic social media can help you increase brand awareness and facilitate engagement with online customers. But don't think that's where the benefits of this lucrative digital strategy end.
Social media marketing has a 100% higher lead-to-close rate than paid advertising.
All of these efforts combined to gain customers' trust and cultivate a rock-solid community are not for nothing. Together, they can boost your conversion rate without forcing you to rely on a paid social media campaign alone.
Organic digital strategies can lay the foundation for long-term, sustainable growth. So if you want to see these results and more, consider your current strategies and test out a more organic approach.
Keep Reading: 7 Reasons Why Customer Experience Matters
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Up Inc. eCommerce Agency is a digital marketing agency based in Los Angeles, CA. Founded in 2021, Up Inc. specializes in eCommerce, generating growth for brands by focusing on visibility, customer loyalty, and digital revenue. For more SEO tips and industry insights, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
