My morning routine is a simple one: I sip my oat milk latte while I scroll through Instagram to catch up on my family and friends' latest posts. On one particular recent occasion, I stumbled across a post for my local taco shop and right below that, saw a paid advertisement from Taco Bell. Can you guess where I decided to get dinner from after work that night? Yes, I drove to the local shop and ordered fish tacos.

That’s the beauty of organic social media. It’s only there that you will find a local business going head to head with fortune 500 companies, competing on the same playing field. And the best part of the organic post? The local business doesn’t need to pay a dime.

Before I dive in and explain why your business needs a social media strategy, let’s lay out the foundation.

What is Organic Social Media?

Organic social media is social content that showcases your business to an audience without paying for any promotions. The type of content you can share will vary depending on the social media platform you choose but it usually consists of photos, vidoes, and stories. Posts are essentially just like those you see from personal friends and family, but represent your business instead.

What is an Organic Social Media Strategy?

An organic social media strategy helps your business build customer relationships, monitor brand reputation, and improve overall brand image. It means you’re participating in the social networks where your customers already browse, and doing so in a deliberate and intentional way that fosters a connection between you and your audience over time.

Why Do You Need an Organic Social Media Strategy?

The following list is a breakdown of reasons you should implement an organic social media strategy for your business. Read on to learn how and why your business can benefit.

1. Nurture Relationships with Your Audience

With an organic social media strategy, you can create and nurture relationships with your audience. Nurturing can be as simple as sharing informative or fun content that you know your audience will like. You can take it a step further by interacting with your followers by responding to comments and sharing user generated content like customer reviews. When you do this, you are telling your customers that you value them and their opinion.

“There’s a lot of competition and ‘noise’ in the organic social media space, especially with many companies automating their social media. Responding to and engaging with customers, fans, and followers can help your brand be heard over the ‘noise.’ Additionally, your audience will appreciate the personalized service and your brand will be seen as approachable and genuine.” - Paula Finkelstein, Sr. Marketing Strategy Consultant at Wheels Up Collective.

With an effective strategy, you can manage customer relationships and build brand reputation that will ultimately build a strong relationship with your audience.

2. Influences Consumer Buying Decisions

Have you ever seen a friend post their new shoes on Instagram and you immediately commented, “Where did you get your shoes?” If so, you’re living proof that organic social media strategy influences consumer buyer decisions.

In fact, a study from GlobalWebIndex and Hubspot states that, “54% of social media users use social media to research products and 71% are more likely to purchase products and services based on social media referrals.”

People are influenced by what their network and their friends are sharing online. A strong organic strategy can help create genuine interactions with the brand, and encourage users to share content within their own networks which can lead to an increase in website traffic, and sales or other conversions.

3. Effectively Target Your Audience

Your business can benefit from an organic social media strategy because you can effectively target your audience. One way to do this is through social listening and monitoring social channels to hear what people are saying about your brand, your product or services, and even your competition.

Our co-founder Elise Oras says that “Social listening is one way to easily learn how people are talking and feeling about your brand, even if it’s not directed at your brand. You can gather customer feedback, suggestions, and customer sentiment and use that data to improve future marketing campaigns -- or even improve your product or service.”

With an organic social media strategy, you will not only gain more insight through social listening, but you can also discover where a majority of your audience lives, their age, their gender and other demographics. With this information, you can reshape your brand messaging to resonate with your audience and discover even more potential customers.

Whether you have a team of five or you’re a one-person show, there are many ways you can begin to implement an organic social media strategy to optimize your business performance.

If you don’t know where to start on your organic social media strategy, we want to help.

Let’s chat to discover how Wheels Up can lend a hand.