What Is Organic Reach? 101 on How to Maximise Success

What is organic reach and how could it work for my business? If you haven’t asked yourself this question you could be missing out on a world of potential customers.

Why?

Organic reach is the act of using quality content and social media to your liking over time instead of – or as well as – using paid promotional strategies such as paid links and boosted posts for quicker results.

Of course, if you can engage your audience without having to use paid ads, this saves a lot of money.

There is, of course, a catch. You have to find and invest extra time, effort and even talent to be heard by these prospective customers. All without incurring a cost.

What is Organic Traffic?

Organic traffic refers to the visitors who come to your website or online content through unpaid, natural, and non-promotional means. In other words, it’s the result of people finding your website through search engines like Google, Bing, or Yahoo, as well as through social media, referrals from other websites, and direct visits.

Key characteristics of organic traffic include:

1. Unpaid Source: Organic traffic does not involve any direct payment for advertising or promotions to drive visitors to your website.
2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO): A significant portion of organic traffic comes from search engines. When your website ranks well in search engine results pages (SERPs) for relevant keywords, it can attract organic traffic.
3. Content Quality: High-quality, informative, and relevant content is crucial for attracting and retaining organic visitors. Content that answers users’ questions or provides valuable information tends to perform well.
4. Long-Term Growth: Building organic traffic typically takes time and consistent effort, but it can result in sustainable, long-term growth as your content gains authority and trust.
5. User Intent: Organic traffic often reflects users’ intent to find specific information or solutions to their queries. It’s essential to align your content with user intent to attract the right audience.
6. Cost-Effective: While organic traffic requires investment in content creation and SEO, it is generally cost-effective compared to paid advertising methods.
7. Authenticity: Visitors from organic sources often perceive your content as more authentic and trustworthy because it’s not driven by promotional intent.
8. Variety of Sources: Organic traffic can come from various sources, including search engines, social media, backlinks from other websites, and direct URL visits.
9. Conversion Potential: While not all organic visitors convert into customers, the ones who do are often highly engaged and have a higher potential for conversion due to their genuine interest in your content or products.

Organic traffic is an essential component of any digital marketing strategy, and businesses aim to increase it by optimizing their websites for search engines, creating valuable content, and engaging with their target audience through various online channels.

What is Organic Reach? Organic vs Paid

Organic reach refers to the number of people who see your content through unpaid, natural, and non-promotional means on various online platforms, particularly on social media and search engines. It is the result of your content’s visibility without the direct influence of paid advertising or boosted posts. Organic reach is important because it reflects how well your content resonates with your target audience and how effectively you can engage them without monetary investments.

You can think about this in terms of the raw number, or Paid reach allows you to target specific audiences, demographics, and interests, ensuring that your content reaches a wider but more targeted audience. While it requires a financial investment, paid reach can provide more immediate results and precise audience targeting (In terms of a proportion of your overall audience).

On the other hand, paid reach includes all the efforts to get your message to as many people as possible through paid advertising. This can mean using social media platforms, Google Adwords, or other PPC tools.

Both organic reach and paid reach are closely related. It is recommended that both are used hand in hand with your social media marketing efforts.

Overall the choice between organic and paid reach depends on your marketing goals, budget, and the nature of your content. Organic reach is valuable for building long-term brand recognition, trust, and a dedicated audience, while paid reach can rapidly increase your content’s exposure and drive specific actions like conversions or sales. An effective digital marketing strategy often combines both organic and paid efforts to maximise overall reach and engagement.

Here are the key features and characteristics of Organic Reach versus Paid Reach in digital marketing:

Organic Reach:

1. Unpaid Exposure: Organic reach relies on natural visibility without direct financial investment in advertising or promotions.
2. Content Quality: It emphasizes the importance of high-quality, engaging, and relevant content that resonates with your target audience.
3. Authenticity: Organic content is perceived as more authentic and trustworthy because it’s not driven by promotional intent.
4. Long-Term Growth: Building organic reach takes time but can result in sustained, long-term growth in brand awareness and audience loyalty.
5. Relationship Building: It focuses on building relationships with your audience through meaningful interactions and community engagement.
6. Content Optimisation: SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a key component of organic reach, requiring content optimization to rank well in search engine results.
7. Social Media Engagement: On social platforms, organic reach involves creating shareable content and encouraging user engagement through likes, comments, and shares.
8. Challenges: Achieving significant organic reach can be challenging due to algorithm changes and competition for visibility.

Paid Reach (Best if you want to reach more people – Boost your Facebook):

1. Budget Allocation: Paid reach involves allocating a specific budget for advertising and promotions.
2. Targeted Audiences: It offers precise audience targeting options based on demographics, interests, behaviours, and more.
3. Immediate Results: Paid advertising can deliver immediate results in terms of increased visibility, website traffic, and conversions.
4. Campaign Control: Advertisers have greater control over the timing, placement, and distribution of their content.
5. Conversion Tracking: Paid reach allows for detailed tracking and measurement of conversions, allowing for ROI analysis.
6. Promotional Content: Paid content often includes call-to-action (CTA) elements designed to drive specific actions, such as purchases or sign-ups.
7. Competitive Advantage: Paid advertising can help businesses gain a competitive edge by quickly reaching potential customers.
8. Ad Formats: Various ad formats are available (Like a Facebook ad or Instagram ad), including display ads, video ads, sponsored posts, and search engine ads. This is one of the best ways to increase organic traffic

Both organic and paid reach have their advantages and are often used in tandem to create a balanced digital marketing strategy. Organic reach focuses on building a strong foundation and audience loyalty, while paid reach can provide immediate visibility and targeted results. The choice between the two depends on your marketing objectives, timeline, and budget.

What is Organic Reach on Facebook?

For Facebook Insights – Organic reach on Facebook refers to the number of unique users, either fans or nonfans, who see your unpaid for posts in the newsfeed or on your Facebook Page..

It’s widely accepted that it’s more difficult than ever to organically reach your followers on Facebook.

The chances are high you’ve been managing a business page for your Facebook for a couple of years. You may have noted a decline in the way your fans have been viewing and interacting with the posts you publish.

We’ve identified two main reasons for the recent decline in the Facebook’s organic reach. These are:

1. Ad content is now competing with the unpaid content for space in the newsfeed.
2. Due to the recent changes in the Facebook News Feed Algorithm, Facebook organic research has begun to shift ranking to ensure newsfeed is increasingly based on connecting with people.

Organic reach on Facebook refers to the number of unique users who see your content (e.g., posts, updates, photos, videos) on your Facebook Page or in their News Feeds without any paid promotion or advertising involved. It’s a crucial metric for businesses and individuals using Facebook as a platform to connect with their audience, as it indicates how effectively your content is being shared and engaged with organically, without spending money on boosting posts or running ads.

Here are some key points related to organic social media reach on Facebook:

1. Reach More People Organically: Organic reach is the number of people who see your content without any paid promotion. It’s an important metric because it allows you to gauge the impact of your content without spending on advertising.
2. Tips to Increase Your Organic Reach: To increase your organic reach on Facebook, consider these tips:
   • Create high-quality, engaging content that resonates with your audience.
   • Post consistently to maintain an active presence.
   • Use relevant hashtags and keywords in your posts.
   • Encourage audience engagement through likes, comments, and shares.
   • Share user-generated content when appropriate.
   • Use Facebook Insights to analyze your audience and tailor content accordingly.
3. Organic Reach Decline: In recent years, Facebook has made algorithmic changes that have led to a decline in organic reach for many Pages and users. This means that your posts may not reach as many people organically as they once did. To combat this decline, it’s essential to focus on content quality and audience engagement.
4. Use Facebook Insights: Facebook provides a tool called Insights, which offers valuable data about your Page’s performance, including reach and engagement metrics. Regularly reviewing Insights can help you understand what types of content resonate best with your audience.
5. Organic Reach Is the Number: Organic reach is a critical metric because it directly reflects the size of your audience. It represents the potential for your content to be seen and engaged with by your followers and their connections.

In summary, organic reach on Facebook is the number of unique users who see your content without paid promotion. While organic reach has declined for some, you can still maximize it through strategic content creation, engagement, and the use of Facebook Insights to understand and connect with your audience effectively.

Bring Your Facebook Organic Reach Back to Life

Facebook has been and is still an essential tool for businesses. However, the changes in the Facebook newsfeed algorithm have seen the platform favour paid advertisers over marketers looking for organic reach.

There are a few ways to reclaim lost Facebook organic search. Let’s take a look at some e effective organic strategies for Facebook.

An updated version for Meta/Facebook

Host Live Webinars or Create Static Facebook Videos

Without high-quality, engaging content, you’ll not even earn a single share for your posts.

Facebook video is the new secret of the game.

However, don’t post YouTube links to Facebook. Facebook has a vested interest in promoting its own platform over competitors, so the algorithm privileges video content which is uploaded directly.

Become one of the few companies that are shifting and stand a chance to generate more interactions and build an active community with Facebook Live Videos.

Slow Down on the Number of Times You Post

Postings several times a day and scheduling your blog posts to be shared over and over again won’t cut with the updated Facebook algorithm.

So, to increase your reach, cut the number of times you post and invest that time in curating high-quality content worth your readers’ time.

Be Selective in What You Post

The time has come for marketers and publishers to switch gear from an untargeted content or Facebook posts to targeted selective content.

Regardless of whether you’ve sponsored a post or not, it’s possible to target it to a specific audience. It means the post will reach most of the group who’ll be actually interested in the particular topic leading to improvement interactions and engagement.

Allocate a Budget for Your Best Posts

The secret to reigniting your Facebook organic reach lies in boosting some of your best posts to reach more of your engaged audience. In other words, when a post performs well organically, then you can put money behind it.

But there’s an excellent approach to boosting Facebook posts.

Use the news feed targeting for your organic posts and then analyze the posts that get well received. Once you notice a particular post is likely to take off, then you can swoop in and boost it to increase engagements.

What is Organic Reach on Twitter?

Twitter is an excellent marketing channel and brands are using it to drum up more organic reach. As such, you cannot afford to lag behind.

Just like Facebook, Twitter has changed how they display tweets on your timeline. You already know that the Twitter timeline consists of three segments: ranked tweets, ‘In Case You Missed It’ and the then remaining tweet flow in chronological order.

Now, the algorithm can analyse the tweets from all the accounts followed by a particular user and then assign them a relevance score based on a couple of factors:

Twitter Factors for Organic Reach

The first factor is the tweet itself. How recent is it? Does the tweet contain media such as videos or images? What’s the overall engagement on that tweet?

Once again, as you can see, videos and the level of engagement will determine the number of people your tweet reaches.

Second, how you interact with your fans. If you engage your fans, then they’ll always be the first one to see your tweets.

The third factor is the user. How active a user is on Twitter will determine how they’ll receive your tweet.

The Twitter algorithm is intended to display the best tweet for the users before they can see the time ordered lengthy tweets.

Here are a few hacks to boost your Twitter organic reach:

• Select the top posts, modify and retweet them a couple of times a day and the updated algorithm with reward you with retweets, likes, and impressions,
• Identifying the best time to tweet still works but it’ll change with time. Twitter offers free tools such as Followerwonk and
• Tweriod that you can use to know when most of your followers are active,
• Do more and more Twitter native live videos. You could start by incorporating the videos into text,
• Create branded and relevant hashtags – tied to your brand,
• Find time to reply to most of the mentions for more engagements,
• Set a budget and promote your tweet.

What is Organic Reach on Instagram?

If there’s one big challenge businesses are facing when using Instagram, and especially with the newly updated algorithm, then it’s getting more Instagram followers.

Not receiving as many likes as you did a few years ago? The platform has added a couple of new features aimed at making content easier to share but has rendered organic reach Instagram.

There’s been a paradigm shift towards what the users actually want – the moments they care about rather than just stuffing the news feed with noise. The goal is to make the platform more human while enhancing the fun.

Here are some workarounds to boost your organic reach Instagram without necessarily relying on Instagram paid search:

• Instagram stories to drive engagement and rank higher in the algorithm,
• Take eye-catching photos and videos that tell a story – Instagram is all about sharing your best moments with the followers,
• Post your content when your audience is active and not at 3.00am
• Use Instagram hashtags,
• Use highlights and live stories and integrate hashtags plus your location
• Comment and reply to drive engagement,
• Power likes and super fans are working like crazy. In this case, an account with over 50K followers likes your posts, and the Instagram algorithm interprets that as more meaningful engagements emanating from influential accounts.

What is Organic Reach on Twitter?

TikTok has become an excellent marketing channel for several reasons, making it a powerful platform for brands and businesses looking to reach and engage with a diverse and active audience. Here are some key reasons why TikTok is considered an excellent marketing channel:

1. Massive User Base: TikTok boasts a massive and rapidly growing user base, with billions of monthly active users worldwide. This presents a significant opportunity for brands to tap into a vast and diverse audience.
2. High User Engagement: TikTok users are highly engaged and spend a considerable amount of time on the platform. This increased engagement provides more opportunities for brands to connect with users.
3. Young and Trendy Audience: TikTok’s user base is primarily comprised of younger demographics, including Gen Z and Millennials. This makes it an ideal platform for brands targeting these age groups.
4. Authenticity and Creativity: TikTok encourages creativity and authenticity. Brands can showcase their personality and creativity, building a more genuine connection with their audience.
5. Short-Form Video Format: TikTok’s short video format (15 to 60 seconds) is ideal for capturing users’ attention in today’s fast-paced digital world. It also encourages quick and consumable content.
6. Trending Challenges and Hashtags: TikTok’s trending challenges and hashtags provide opportunities for brands to participate in popular trends and increase their visibility.
7. Innovative Advertising Options: TikTok offers a range of advertising options, including native ads, sponsored challenges, and influencer partnerships, allowing brands to reach their target audience effectively.
8. Viral Potential: TikTok’s algorithm is designed to promote content that resonates with users, making it possible for content to go viral quickly. This can significantly amplify a brand’s reach. Creating visually appealing, entertaining, and informative content that resonates with TikTok’s diverse user base is crucial for organic reach. TikTok users appreciate creativity and authenticity.
9. Global Reach: TikTok is a global platform, enabling brands to reach audiences in different countries and regions, expanding their global reach.
10. E-commerce Integration: TikTok has been working to integrate e-commerce features, making it easier for brands to drive sales directly from the platform.
11. User-Generated Content: Encouraging user-generated content and user participation in challenges and campaigns can create a sense of community and authenticity around your brand.
12. Data Analytics: TikTok provides robust data analytics and insights, allowing brands to track the performance of their campaigns and make data-driven decisions.
13. Entertainment and Education: Brands can use TikTok to entertain and educate their audience simultaneously, making it an engaging platform for various industries.
14. TikTok Ads Manager: The platform offers an Ads Manager where brands can set budgets, target specific demographics, and track ad performance.
15. Cross-Promotion: Brands can cross-promote their TikTok content on other social media platforms to drive traffic and increase engagement.

How to Maximise Organic Reach on Social Media

There are ways to tackle the decline in organic reach without going down the path of paid content. These are particularly useful for small businesses and startups that may not have the freedom with a budget to apply to their social media marketing.

Some examples of these methods are:

• Unique content on different platforms.
• Tailoring your content to the different platforms you use will be beneficial in how it performs.
• Using image size requirements and text formats expected on the different platforms is essential.
• For example, hashtags work extremely well on platforms like Instagram and Twitter but can look out of place on Facebook, even though they are technically supported.

Consistent Posting

The algorithms on all social media platforms will privilege content from accounts with good engagement. Consistent posting is the only way to build a track record here. Posting consistently is also extremely important for growing your audience.

It can be extremely off-putting for a user to go to a business page that hasn’t been posted in weeks,months or years. This gives the impression of absence. How are they meant to know you still exist?

Consistent posts will convey the message that your business is there to engage with your following and help with any queries they may have.

Understand Your Audience

Understanding the content that your audience enjoys is key when planning your social media strategy. Quality content should be relevant and thought provoking to your social audience no matter the platform.

They are more likely to share it, engage and most importantly, return to your page to consume your content. This will increase your organic reach.

Understand the Algorithm

Social algorithms are constantly changing how they share your content. This is due to the fact that the algorithms are made up of thousands of factors based on how their users behave.

As user behaviour is a constantly changing pattern, having an understanding and a maintenance on how algorithms are changing is crucial for your social strategy and organic reach.

The algorithms themselves also get more sophisticated as time goes on. The larger the data set they have to work with, the better they’re able to predict how users will behave and engage with different content.

However, if you have access to a budget for your social media marketing, there are a number of different promotional options and avenues to choose from to have your content reach your existing and wider audiences.

A growing popular choice for paid reach is the use of social media influencers. These can range from larger influencers such as popular YouTube personalities to micro-bloggers in your local area.

This avenue of paid social marketing looks to increase as Instagram announced it’s new feature to allow brands to pay to boost influencer posts as ads into the feeds of non-followers.

How to Grow Your Business With Organic Reach

Social media organic reach is growing harder by the day. Considering the continuing changes in the various platforms’ algorithms, it only makes sense for marketers like you to change the way you do things.

Although some of the tips we provide here for gaining more organic reach on social platforms will work today, they may not help you three or four months from now.
So it’s important to keep on top of the very latest developments.

Meanwhile, make sure you set a budget for paid reach to enhance your reach further and to avoid relying on non-scalable and unpredictable traffic sources.

To discuss your social media strategy, contact ProfileTree today.