Is Organic Social (Still) Dead? A 5-Year Retrospective

In late 2018 fresh off of my stint at Canva, I decided to rebrand my one-man social media marketing agency after 5 years of operation. After deciding on a name and brand, I started to look back at the biggest trend I had noticed over the past few years prior: the decline of organic social media performance.

I’ve now decided to republish the article below along with some updates to reflect the situation in 2023:

When I began my profession as a social media marketer way back halcyon days of 2012, the landscape was way different. Perhaps that stands out as a trite point, considering the nature of social media itself, but it bears repeating since I still see some brands and individuals employing marketing techniques that haven’t performed well in years. Especially on Facebook and Instagram. 

You see, 13 years ago, organic social was king on both of the aforementioned platforms. Back in those days, Facebook Ads were a joke. Sure, the platform existed and all, but your results probably weren’t all that good. At least, they probably weren’t good enough that you’d want to spend the bulk of your time focusing on crafting highly complex campaigns — why would you when you could reach your target audience for free? All you had to do was pay your Social Media Marketer or Community Manager to do so. All they really had to do was put together some quick graphics on Photoshop — likely little more than impact text on stock photography considering the artistic sensibilities of most of us at the time — and voila. Your post would be able to reach upwards of 40% of your captive audience. Every. Single. Time.

Those days are gone. Finished. No more. Do you know how much reach you’re lucky to get with your average Facebook post these days? 2%. Think about that for a second: if you have an audience size of 20,000 — that is to say, a ‘medium-sized Facebook or Instagram Page —  then you’d be lucky if 400 people saw your post. Now think for a second, how much money are you paying your Social Media Marketer to put together that post? Chances are, way more than it’d cost you to reach 400 new individuals with Meta Ads. This should come as no surprise to anyone who’s been following the evolution of Social Media for the last decade — Facebook went public and needed to deliver on promises of quarterly growth to their stockholders. Why should they offer brands the ability to reach an audience for ‘free’ when they could charge you for it? It makes sense that they’ve repeatedly hacked away at organic reach with each update they make to their algorithm. Wouldn’t you if you were in Mark Zuckerberg’s position? I know I would. 

Is Organic Facebook & Instagram Right For You?

This brings me to you and your business. We all want to be thought leaders and have the coolest brand, that probably goes without saying, but at the end of the day, we’re here to make money. Moolah. Cash. You could have your organic social media manager spend hundreds of hours projecting an aura of hipness and youth onto your brand’s social presence and have nothing to show for it. It bears repeating for some folk out there: if you’re in business it’s because you have something to sell. Never get in the way of your marketing professional, whose job it is to do the selling for you. Branding is great and all but your efforts should be, especially when you have a new or newish project on your plate, on acquisition. And that’s something that you’ll only be able to achieve with a winning paid social strategy in hand. Period. 

Now, you might be saying: what in the world are you talking about? My Instagram posts get 100 likes every time I post. And to that, I would say, good job. So do most Instagrammers, even those who have relatively small followings. While it is true that discoverability is better on IG than on Facebook, the fact of the matter is that most of the likes and comments you receive aren’t real. How do I know? Because I’ve tested Instagram automation suites in the past and know just how easy it is to create bot accounts that’ll like and comment on everyone and their mother’s profiles in hopes that they’ll get a follow back. 

Even if that wasn’t the case, let’s pretend for a second that your likes are 100% real. Let’s say that you’re getting real engagement on your Instagram post. How many of those engagements are actually bringing you business? The fact that hyperlinks aren’t allowed in organic posts on Instagram means that you’ll have to constantly update your bio and get your followers to click back once they see your post — or on your profile if it’s showing up in a feed — and click onto your bio in order to get the content that you’re promoting. While those clicks you do end up getting will be of relatively high quality compared to, let’s say, Twitter, it’s just common sense to assume that most people can’t be bothered to jump through multiple hoops just to see whatever product or service you’re promoting. They want it there, laid out before them. Instant gratification, baby. 

Should I Pursue An Organic Social Media Strategy?

I want to make it clear that I don’t think that there’s zero value in organic social media marketing. Hell, we offer it as a service on OuiGrowth. I just think that it’s not suited for most of my clients unless they have a massive budget or aren’t really concerned about sales because the strength of their brand is so overwhelming that they’re certain that they will get sales just from exposure. In all the years I’ve been working in Social Media, I can count on one hand the number of clients who fall into one of the two aforementioned cases. That means that if you have a small-to-medium-sized business, you’re just not ready for organic social. At least not beyond a basic ‘maintenance level’. You need to focus on building your business through paid social acquisition first and foremost before you decide that your brand needs work. 

So is there any way to make an organic social media strategy work when you’re a small-to-medium-sized business? Of course, there is. You just need to partner with micro-influencers and other emerging influencers in order to make it work. You also need to invest in high-quality content that actually serves a purpose instead of pumping out content with no real thought and no real added value.

Is Organic Social Media Dead?

Ultimately, Organic Social Media isn’t dead.  What’s dead in the water is uninspiring content that has been quickly assembled and disseminated through your social media profiles. Now is it right for businesses to focus on dedicating the resources and time in order to make a truly successful organic post strategy work? That all depends on where you’re at and whether you’re happy with the level of sales you’re making right now. 

State of Organic Social Media Marketing in 2023

As I read through my old article from half a decade ago the message I was putting out then still resonates as much with me today as it did then. Sure, new networks like TikTok have taken off but does it still make sense to have a digital marketing strategy skewed towards ad-spend rather than organic posting? Absolutely. The advice I was putting out in 2018 should still be read and internalized by founders and marketers alike. Stop equating your popularity with success. Stop chasing vanity metrics and focus on your core business performance.

If you’d like to know what to focus on, I put together a tool called the Veitia Matrices which can help you re-orient yourself towards performance. Want to read more about the Veitia Matrices? Download a template you can print at home by signing up for my newsletter below.