Why Organic Reach Is (Nearly) Dead on Social Media
Marketers love social media.
You can start an account and begin posting for free. You can hypothetically reach millions of people with a single post. You can say or promote (almost) anything you want.
And because of that, many people assume that as long as you have good content, and you genuinely appeal to a specific audience, eventually, your channel is going to grow.
But that may no longer be the case.
That’s because organic reach on social media is dying – and while we can’t quite call it “dead,” if you want to see better results on social media, you’re going to need a plan that doesn’t depend on your ability to reach people organically.
What Is Organic Reach?
Let’s start with the basics. What exactly is organic reach?
Organic reach refers to the number of people that your content reaches without the help of paid advertising. In other words, when you make a post, how many people see that post on their news feeds?
This metric is important because it helps you reap the full value of a free social media strategy. It’s true that you can still start an account and make new posts for free, but this is only going to be relevant and valuable if your posts are seen by real people.
Different social media platforms have different algorithms dictating how and where new pieces of content are organically distributed. But for each social media platform, there is a certain amount of organic reach you can naturally expect – and that reach is in sharp decline.
The Slow Death of Organic Reach
So how do we know that organic reach is declining?
Way back in 2012, the organic reach for an average Facebook page was around 16 percent; in other words, 16 percent of the people following your page would see your new post, on average. These days, the average reach is closer to 8.6 percent. And for pages with more than 500,000 likes, the organic reach can be as low as 2 percent.
That’s a massive drop.
Obviously, Facebook isn’t the only social media platform – but other social platforms have low (and dropping) organic reach rates as well. Instagram, for example, has an organic reach rate of 13.51 percent – better than Facebook’s current rate, but lower than the peak rate. Instagram’s organic reach dropped by 29 percent compared to last year, while Facebook’s dropped by 9 percent.
Why does this trend exist? And why is it continuing?
There are a few possible explanations. As more people join social media and follow more pages, it’s possible that there simply isn’t enough room to make sure all new posts from all sources are adequately organically distributed. Throttling organic reach could also be a way of optimizing the quality and relevance of content for individual news feeds; if social media algorithms are distributing fewer posts, it means they can focus more on quality over quantity.
But there’s another, more obvious explanation. Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram make money from advertising (Meta pulled in nearly $115 billion last year). Accordingly, they want to incentivize brands and individuals to pay for artificially higher levels of reach; if you could reliably reach half your audience for free with organic posts, these platforms wouldn’t make any money. Conversely, if you make dozens of new posts that barely register with your audience and fail to reach new people, you’ll be practically forced to pursue paid advertising.
How Should You Update Your Strategy?
Understanding the decline of organic reach is interesting, but what does this mean for your channel on a practical level? What can you do to make up for the ongoing decline of organic reach across social media channels?
- Set proper expectations. First, set the right expectations for your social media strategy. The days of reaching millions of people for free are pretty much over. When you post new content, don’t expect your entire fanbase to see it – and make sure you reinforce your content marketing strategy with additional distribution methods.
- Select the right channels. Not all social media channels suffer from the organic reach problem equally. For example, on LinkedIn, it’s still possible for some posts on some small pages to see an organic reach rate of 100 percent – and 77 percent of content marketers call it the best platform for seeing organic results. LinkedIn does have some downsides, such as lower user numbers and some content limitations, but it’s certainly worth considering in an era of dying organic reach.
- Include engagement incentives. Posts with high levels of engagement consistently perform better than their non-engaging counterparts. You can boost your organic reach by making sure your posts attract likes, shares, comments, and other forms of interaction. There are many tactics that can help you do this, such as by appealing to a niche demographic, striking controversy and encouraging debate, and using contests or giveaways to incentivize engagement directly.
- Pursue organic reach alternatives. If organic reach fails you, incorporate more alternative methods for reaching your audience. If you have the budget for it, consider utilizing paid advertising strategies; they may cost you money, but if you plan these campaigns properly, you should see a positive return on investment (ROI). You can also distribute your content via channels with more reliable reach and higher returns; for example, email marketing provides you with consistent distribution patterns and can return $36 or more for every $1 you spend on it. That doesn’t mean you should abandon organic posts on social media – it just means you should use them in conjunction with a broader, omnichannel approach.
Plummeting organic reach rates on social media doesn’t need to spell doom for your social media marketing strategy. There’s not much you can do to stall or reverse this trend, but you can update your marketing approach to compensate for this decline. Simple tactical changes, like investing in omnichannel marketing and optimizing your posts for engagement, can help you see much better long-term results.