As technology improves and social media becomes even more integrated in our everyday lives, we must evolve with it and find new ways to target our audience. Organic reach is an essential component of success in using social media and really focuses on how it all began. Organic reach is simply the number of people your content reaches without paid distribution.
Now, paid reach is a beautiful thing; it helps you target location, niche interests and industries. There is a time and place to utilize this tactic strategically, which is exactly what we focus on here at Haley Marketing – if you spend, we want to make sure that spend is allocated as efficiently as possible. But what I’ve taken a strong interest in lately is going back to social media’s roots – organic reach.
So, how do you gain more organic reach for your social media posts? Here are a few ideas.
Think About Your End Goal.
You may roll your eyes because it seems like we always start with this simple phrase, but you should start with this because it’s the most important. If you don’t know what you want out of a post, you can’t put the right strategies in place; and in the end, no matter how much organic reach you’re getting, if you’re not targeting a specific goal, your efforts may be for nothing.
Do you need more applications, leads, or followers?
Gaining followers is a slippery slope because yes, you want more eyeballs on our posts, but you need to again be strategic. A follower or like doesn’t convert for your business… or at least it doesn’t instantaneously. So, if you’re looking to gain followers, be practical. Just because someone likes your post doesn’t mean they want a job. Just like if you add an item to your cart, it doesn’t necessarily mean you need to buy it.
If you’re gaining followers to your pages, focus on the long-term impact of these followers. It’s as easy to press unfollow as it is to follow someone, so you want to also build a strategy to keep their attention long-term.
Utilize Engagement Currencies.
Whether it’s Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, or Twitter – these platforms contain important algorithms when it comes to engagement. A simple like or comment can not only boost your post to the top of your audience’s news feeds, but it can also spread your organic reach to audiences outside of your page likes.
Are you capitalizing on this?
Develop Persuasive Content.
As a society, we live life in the fast lane. Once we have an idea, we tend to want it created, developed, posted, and converted on as quickly as possible. And honestly, that’s OK – it’s human nature. But what I think is important here is to not take any short cuts.
Instead of posting a caption as quickly as possible, take the time to think about what you’re posting. Does the job have great benefits? TELL THEM. Does the job offer a bonus? TELL THEM. What hours are they working? TELL THEM.
Don’t hide the juicy parts of the job in the job description. When posting to social media, make these points noticeable.
Involve Your Community with Engaging CTAs.
As mentioned, likes, comments and shares are valuable internet currencies, so maximize opportunities for these to happen:
Run a contest.
People love free stuff. Whether it’s a gift card or tickets to a sporting event, adding an incentive can help drive organic reach.
But not too fast – think of your end goal. Specifically, contests are great for gaining long-term audiences because you can add fine print in order for someone to be entered. In your copy, I’d encourage you to have people like the page and the post, and also to comment and share it. All these things take maybe two minutes to do, but they offer real benefits for your firm:
- Like the page – now, you are capturing their attention long-term.
- Like and comment on the post – using those valuable currencies to boost the post.
- Share the post – through this, you’re getting your audience to help you do the work because now their audience has their eyes on your post.
Of course, thinking about conversions, I recommend including a link back to your company website in the social media post. You can then go in and track how much organic traffic your website received and what they did.
Encourage interaction.
Again, you should capitalize on the audience you already have. Through persuasive copy, encourage job seekers and employers to interact with your posts. For example, if you have a job posting on social media, ask your audience to tag or share the post with their friends. After all, even if your audience isn’t interested in the content at the time, that doesn’t mean they don’t know someone who would be interested.
The night shift might not be for everyone, but Sally could have a friend who likes to be at home with her kids. If Sally sees your posts, maybe she’ll tag or share with her friend.
In a world of sponsored posts, organic reach is not dead. For more information on improving your organic reach, check out this week’s episode of InSights.
