While it’s true that brands need to “pay to play” on Facebook, the steady drumbeat of thumb-stopping, on-brand organic content builds a solid foundation for paid campaigns that are crafted to serve specific objectives. With the right strategy, you can make your organic Facebook content work – and work well. Here are four things your marketing team can do to make that happen.
1. Content Strategy
To perform, your organic content needs a clear strategy behind it. Knowing what and when to post on Facebook starts with knowing your audience. Before diving into planning content calendars, establish a clear sense of who you’re talking to and what kind of content they want to see. Collect data on your audience, identify key insights about them and maybe even create buyer personas to give them a clear identity. Conduct a social listening audit to get a pulse on what’s being said about your brand, too. And remember to get to know your competitors and their social media profiles. Next, establish your goals and identify content or stories that will support those goals. Most likely, that’s going to be a combination of product and lifestyle.
2. Video Dominates
More and more, video is becoming the media type dominating the web, and by incorporating it into your strategy, you increase the opportunities for your customers to discover your content. Invest in developing high-quality video content that showcases your product in action. Remember, the Facebook algorithm favors short videos. Giving your audience a close look at real people using your product helps establish brand trust. Collaborations with your customers and micro-influencers are a great way to achieve that authentic point of view.
3. Pay To Play
Facebook has over 2.45 billion monthly active users, and there’s no denying that putting money behind your organic content helps improve reach and performance. In addition to structuring paid advertising campaigns, you can extend the reach of your organic content by either boosting individual posts or creating organic promoted post campaigns to spread your budget across all posts during an established time period. Impactful, attention-grabbing organic content can add weight to your overall marketing strategy. Layering in ad spend to amplify that content makes it work harder for you.
4. Quality Over Quantity
Your organic content needs to provide value to your prospective customer. Do they want to be informed, entertained, motivated? Find creative ways to continually communicate your unique selling proposition so that your audience knows exactly who you are and what you have to offer. What goes into your content matters much more than how often you post your content. Effective engagement with your followers nurtures brand affinity, and shows your brand to be approachable and likable. All of which engender loyalty. Take time to respond to them, interact with them and make them feel heard.
A consistent and creative social media presence with a clear content strategy behind it will help you strengthen your customer relationships and reinforce brand trust, and ultimately will make your organic content work harder for you.
Want some help figuring out how to level up your organic Facebook content, or paid strategies? Reach out to Barbara Wray at barbara@wickmarketing.com or (512) 479-9834.
