What’s the point of organic social media, if it can’t drive sales?

Organic social media isn’t there to drive sales… so how should it be used? A lot of businesses often overlook organic social media because it has little direct or measurable impact on sales figures at the end of the month, but when used properly – with an effective social media strategy – organic social media can be a powerful tool.

Organic Social is Not a Sales-First Channel

There are a number of reasons why organic social media doesn’t drive sales as effectively as other forms of marketing. The first being that many social media platforms have become “pay to play” over the last few years. This started with the rising popularity and success of Facebook advertising, which would eventually transform into meta ads covering Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp, influencing just about every other channel to catch up with their own.

Another big reason is the general roots of social media. In its simplest form, social media is either seen as an entertainment platform or a way to keep up to date with friends and family – which means reading sales messages and looking for business partnerships usually isn’t at the forefront of people’s minds while they scroll. Yes, over the years this has changed slightly, with many users welcoming, or at least tolerating, ad content that is relevant to their interests, creators connecting and collaborating, or impulse buying products from the TikTok shop. But nine times out of ten, users will do this after engaging with an ad or becoming familiar with a brand through social media. The conversion will usually still happen later on and out of the native environment.

Paid social media is far better for achieving sales thanks to its enhanced targeting. With paid ads and even boosted posts, businesses and brands can delve into their audience demographics, behaviours and pain points to get their sales messages over to the right people. With organic social, unless you have created an effective strategy and worked up campaigns to attract your audience, you are essentially throwing your message into the ether and hoping the algorithm likes you enough to push it out to people beyond your following.

Organic Social Media Builds Trust

Imagine you see an ad for a jacket you like on Instagram but you’ve never heard of the brand before – what is the first thing you might do? Google the brand to see if it actually exists? Look up reviews to find out if the brand is a scam or not? Maybe you’ll check the brand’s profile to see if it exists beyond one ad about a jacket. That is what organic social does – it builds trust! 

Organic social messaging helps your audience know that your business really exists and can deliver the products your ads claim you have. If social ads are the attractive frontage of your virtual store that brings customers through the door, organic social is the friendly staff that convinces them to stay and help answer any questions they may have about your business.

This is something that paid social media cannot offer on its own. In a perfect world, organic and paid social media work hand-in-hand to create one powerful digital strategy. Throw in influencer marketing and you have a social media presence for success.

What Other Benefits Does Organic Social Offer?

So, while organic doesn’t bring in immediate sales as effectively as paid, it does have many other benefits which all depend on the platform and your business. In general, organic social media can help your brand by doing some of the following:

Creating a connected, conversational community within your audience
This can work exceptionally well on Facebook and some businesses often go one step further by creating groups for their following to catch up, talk about the brand and create a digital community that revolves around the business.

Promoting your brand as an industry expert
B2B businesses can use their profiles as sector or industry news feeds, alerting their followers to all the necessary information they need to know for their professional lives. Commenting value on the biggest news stories establishes you as an industry thought leader and a trusted voice.

Placing your brand one step ahead of your competitors
By analysing your competitors’ profiles you can discover gaps in the content where your brand could lead the way – whether this is by creating a podcast, publishing more video content or running weekly live Q&A streaming sessions.

Creating personalities and well-known faces with your employees
Featuring your employees on social media is a strong way to achieve success through organic social. With EGC you can allow your employees to shine by offering them a platform to show off their expertise and passion for their roles.

Supplying an additional online customer service portal.
Whether you’re using live chat functions on Meta or just answering comments on TikTok, many businesses find social media can be a great way to help your customers before they contact your customer service team, relieving some of the burden.

Which Social Media Channels Should My Business Be On?

While it may feel like you need to be on all social media platforms to make the most of your digital presence, it is often better to hone in on one to three rather than spreading yourself thin across each.

Each business is different so how you approach the platforms will depend on your service or product offering, your audience demographics and work processes – but here is a basic run down of each core channel’s benefits:

LinkedIn – This channel should always be used to promote business and people news, like acquisitions, senior team member promotions or big brand wins – this channel shines with people-focused content. Showing off your team members by sharing their individual posts can help establish them as thought-leaders while celebrating things such as new hires and work anniversaries helps your business look better for potential new hires.

Instagram – Many brands take to Instagram and fill their feeds with detailed graphics which often don’t yield good results. Instead, you should focus on creating aesthetically pleasing image carousels and entertaining or informational video content to play into Instagram’s algorithms.

Facebook – This platform is all about staying connected, so it’s not surprising that content that focuses on building communities work. Facebook is gradually evolving to what Instagram and TikTok are with entertaining videos taking the forefront of user’s feeds. Everyone loves to laugh – so if you can work that into your strategy it helps.

TikTok – Since this platform has such a powerful algorithm, users can quickly carve out a niche for themselves and find a curated ‘For You Page’ in a matter of days – which means brands can play into this if they know the type of content being watched. Learn your audience’s tastes and what content they like and play into that. Above all, make sure your content is engaging and projects a certain energy, making sure that you offer something in the first three seconds otherwise you will be scrolled away.

What is the best way to use organic social media?

When it comes down to it, the best way to use organic social media is to understand that instant sales aren’t the primary goal – so have fun with it! Always think about how you act on social media and ask yourself, “if I saw this content while on the sofa back home, would I care and would I watch it?”

Since organic social media can’t target specific demographics, you have to be interesting to be seen. Research what your audience wants and try to give them that, whether it’s interesting snippets of information, entertaining videos of your staff in their natural habitat, or ASMR (look it up) versions of products being made.

If you do want to drive sales on social, you need a combined approach that ties in all three areas of social media – organic, paid and influencer marketing. Setting a strategy with these that focus on individual goals and needs for each form will have you building a community, driving clicks to your site and becoming memorable in no time.

I’m always happy to advise clients on building a social media strategy. Take a look at our social media marketing services to find out more.