A race for organic reach: most common mistakes
22/04/2019 6 min readContents:
Organic reach is defined as the “organic” success of a post on a social media; organic in this context means that you did not invest any money in promoting this post. Due to the frequent changes in the algorithms of social media platforms, it becomes more and more complex to get their posts into the news feeds of their current and potential customers.
Yet, while many business owners clutch their heads with both hands and rack their brains to get the past organic search numbers back, the true SEO experts continue their business-as-usual workflow without making a fuss around the changes. Why?
Well, because if your strategy is correct, then the algorithm changes would not kill it, but rather would simply alter some of its goals. In this article, we will talk about the usual misconceptions people have about organic reach and the tips that can help you keep up with the changes.
Worst mistake to make
Before we get to the points that can harm or save an organic reach strategy, keep in mind that the worst mistake to make in the general SEO or SMM strategy is to solemnly focus on organic reach forgetting about the rest of the available metrics.
Organic reach is important – no one doubts that. However, the fact that a post on a social media platform has been seen by 100,000 people does not guarantee any further actions on their side. So while a business definitely needs to improve its coverage and organic reach, it should not become the end goal.
Now let’s take a look at the mistakes, issues, and ways of dealing with them.
1. Too many posts
While this seems like an obvious statement, it is most frequently broken by the businesses. If your page creates 100 posts daily on every social media platform, then you can imagine how frustrated would feel your potential customers after being bombarded with messages and notifications.
Yes, such a strategy allows reaching more people – this is an unquestionable fact. However, the fact that 50 or 100 more people see your posts, does not guarantee that you get that many converted viewers. At the same time, a high number of posts guarantees that annoyed and harassed current subscribers would consider unsubscribing or silencing your business page for some time or even forever.
Customers today have the great power of “unsubscribe” and “unfollow” buttons. So before you decide to irritate existing loyal customers with hundreds of posts on a daily basis, ensure that it is worth it. Our experience says that a maximum of 3-4 posts per social media network daily is enough since quality always trumps quantity.
2. Irrelevant content for some hype
Let’s say that you are selling coffee. And you created a post about the peculiarities and kinds of Arabica. Now, instead of naming your social media post Learn What Type of Arabica Is Best, you name it A Man Gave Birth To Baby.
You understand that such a post would bring huge resonance and immense numbers for organic reach. However, once people learn that there is no content related either to first-ever-man-mom nor a baby born by a man (and instead you are talking about Arabica and its advantages) they, first of all, will get frustrated about the absence of the advertised content. Secondly, they will never subscribe to your page. And finally, they might even report you to the platform authorities.
In such a scenario, you get lots of organic views – true. But are they useful – no!
Moreover, do not forget that social media platforms improve their algorithms to recognize such clickbait headlines. If the bounce rate for your post is higher than expected and the time spent on your page is extremely short, then be ready to get a much lower ranking.
You understand that clickbait headlines work only provided that they are related to the content of your article. So do not try to earn more organic reach for nothing. Aim for the targeted audience that will get interested in the headline and will actually read or watch the content you are offering. Keeping people engaged is the best way to level up organic reach and conversion in the long run.
3. Forgetting about the competition
To improve your organic reach, you need to be competitive in the market. And a common mistake for a business is to focus on its own strategy without following the latest market trends. For example, today video is trending and long-read articles not, especially in terms of organic reach in social media.
So while your content can be significantly more valuable than the one your competition develops, they would frame all information in a video and you will create a long Facebook post. In such a situation, you will lose your organic reach for two reasons: video is more popular for users, social media platforms like videos more.
The tip is to follow the market. While you need to improve your own social media pages, you still need to monitor what works for businesses in your niche. Such a strategy allows remaining within the trends and hence delivering the best-fitting content for your potential viewers, readers, and eventually customers.
4. Calls to action
The standard ways of calling people to action, such as writing under the post “Like and share” do not work anymore. Social media platforms learned to identify such explicit calls to action. Once they spot a similar working in your post, they will never show it in the suggested content for the third-line users. And earning back trust for your social media page will be tough if not impossible.
So instead of explicitly asking people to like, share, or comment on your posts, focus on making your content engaging and controversial to naturally engage people in discussions.
5. Tricking and sticking to the algorithm
A lot of businesses try to trick social media platforms by dividing their visual content, such as images (memes) and videos. For instance, some break a single image into four pieces and then generate a static looping video from the last piece.
Such a trick is considered a smart workaround because social media platforms love posts with video more and hence would level up such content closer to the top in the overall ranking. And the higher the post is, the greater organic reach it can achieve. While such a trick would bring you popularity, it will be short-term fame that is easily calculated by any social media platform at this point.
What one should remember from this example is that chasing the algorithm at all times and trying to adjust every post to the latest platform changes brings no good in the long run. By constantly altering your methods, you will only draw further and further apart from your initial goal and hence have a chance of losing it completely.
Instead of chasing the changes, adapt to them, make a slow transfer to the new tactics. Moreover, keep in mind that not all changes stick for long, so there is absolutely no reason to adopt them instantly. Wait until something sticks, and then get down to amending your strategy.
The final thoughts
Keeping up with the market trends, algorithm changes, and competition developments can be tough in the beginning. And there is nothing scary or extremely expensive in seeking the professional assistance of an SEO company.
However, remember the most important thought that with the right content and smart approach to social media marketing, your business will thrive and the number of converted viewers would grow exponentially day by day.
