Through social media, a brand can reach hundreds or even thousands of new followers and potential customers overnight. But how might a brand maximize growth and engagement long-term? Our expert Account Coordinator Maddie Wildes shares with us how you can leverage your organic social content to keep your audience coming back for more.

Provide Opportunities to Interact with Your Followers 

While social media may inherently provide a community for users, it is still important to initiate dialogue and connection when interacting with an audience.  

Consistently responding to comments and direct messages is one way to establish a relationship with your audience. Interactive polls, reposts, Q&A boxes, and photo-sharing links are available on channels such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter also foster connection. Encouraging dialogue allows followers to feel as though their ideas and opinions matter.

Outside of the usual interactive social media tools, some users promote giveaways and contests as a fun way of stimulating these audience interactions, which can help capture the audience that may not interact with polls and Q&As– who doesn’t love the chance to win? 

Diversify Your Content

Just like daily life, repetition on social media can get boring fast. The beauty of organic content is that it can serve any purpose you desire, so be sure to change it up!  

Keep content interesting by alternating between video, photo, and written media, length of the post, and subject. Address current events, post for holidays, yes, even holidays like National Pizza Day, provide informational resources for followers, share aesthetic photos related to your brand, and hop on virtual trends to create a wide variety of content that can be shared organically! 

Create a Content Schedule

Developing an action plan for your social channels should go hand in hand with creating diverse, organic content. Posting schedules provide a visual plan to manage and separate the dates that similar content will be uploaded. Although some days may receive better post engagement than others, it is important to spread your content out over the course of days, so followers aren’t overwhelmed by multiple posts at one specific time or day each week.  

Publishing calendar tools such as Sprout Social and Brand Watch can assist with the scheduling process and provide valuable insights into the best time of day and days of the week to upload content.

Explore Different Social Media Platforms

Every social media platform provides the opportunity to leverage organic content in different ways. For example, while parents and teachers may be more likely to engage with content on Facebook, their students may first go to Instagram to find the same information.  

For this reason, it is important to share your organic content across a variety of social media platforms to reach every potential audience. The same information can be shared in different ways depending on the platform being used. If you are utilizing platforms like TikTok, information that was shared in a graphic on Instagram or in writing on Facebook may now need to be transformed into a video format for best engagement.

Step Into Your Audience’s Shoes

As all marketers understand, the most effective way to appeal to an audience is by putting yourself in their shoes, to think from their perspective. Whenever you’re scrolling through social media or drafting a post, it is important to think about the audience you are hoping to reach.  

Posting for a younger audience or on Instagram and TikTok? You may want to capitalize on a current viral trend to connect best with their sense of humor. Targeting a group of parents? Providing credible resources and thorough explanations in your posts may be best for establishing a relationship.  

Extreme Attention to Detail

Although this one might seem obvious, attention to detail is the defining line between organic content that succeeds and content that fails. Be sure to review the writing and graphics included in your post several times to make sure your message will be interpreted exactly the way it is intended to be received. Especially if you have sensitive audiences, attention to word choice is essential. One mistake can turn your brand into a viral sensation for all the wrong reasons!  

Need help ramping up your Social Media Content Strategy? Reach out to us at connect@thebelfortgroup.com to get started.