If you’re a solopreneur or small business owner, you have limited resources and time to grow your organic reach.
Marketing your brand is just one of your many business responsibilities.
But in today’s challenging times, maximizing your online presence is the only way to grow your business.
When your marketing budget is limited, you’ll want to focus on growing your business with organic content, not just paid advertising.
This article provides nine easy, actionable tips to grow your organic reach—optimize your presence without spending ad money. So, let’s dive in.
What Is Organic Reach?
Organic reach refers to the number of people who see your content on social media, search engines, or online platforms without paid promotions.
It can be very challenging to grow your organic reach. In fact, according to the latest statistics, the average organic reach on Facebook hovered around 5.2% in 2021. This is a steep drop from 16% in 2012. Instagram’s organic reach was reported to be between 2%-6% for the same period. Of course, you could experience a higher or lower rate, depending on your messaging and the value of your content.
Nevertheless, the ROI is worth it to optimize your organic marketing strategy.
Why Should You Grow Your Organic Reach?
There are more than 4.5 billion active social media users worldwide.
Do you have to be on social media?
You can market your business solely through traditional channels, such as radio and TV ads, billboards, or distributing leaflets and business cards.
You can attend industry conventions and local seminars to network and leave information about your business.
Traditional channels still work.
But you can’t reach 4.5 billion social media users.
Granted, you don’t have 4.5 billion potential customers, but you get the idea. So yes, you have to be on digital media.
The rise of paid advertising on digital media has made it more challenging to grow your organic reach. However, despite the challenges, organic marketing remains a pivotal component of a successful marketing strategy.
Organic reach helps you grow your business.
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- Builds brand awareness—allowing you to reach a wider audience and build brand recognition without spending money on ads.
- Builds trust—consumers are wary of ads. Unless the ad content is amazingly engaging, most consumers skip over it. But, when consumers see your organic content in their feed or through organic search, they are more likely to trust your brand and want to do business with you.
- Increases engagement—organic reach enables opportunities for your audience to interact with your content. For example, they might comment, like, or share, all of which expands the reach and visibility of your organic content.
How To Grow Your Organic Reach
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Define Your Niche Audience
As a solopreneur or small business owner, you don’t yet have a broad audience base. So, the first step to optimizing your organic reach is to define and refine your niche product or service.
For example, let’s say you’re a coach.
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- Are you a coach to everyone? Doubtful.
- Who do you want to coach?
- Entrepreneurs?
- Sports enthusiasts?
- Psychologists?
- SaaS founders?
- Musicians?
Let’s say you’re a graphics artist. Do you want to offer your graphics art services to everyone? Maybe you want to focus on health, women-focused startups, or brands in the sustainable environment space.
Once zeroed in on your niche market, develop niche personas to shape messaging and content that appeals to your niche audience and aligns with your products or services.
2. Create Targeted, Valuable Content That Can Be Easily Repurposed
When you’re a small business owner or solopreneur, you won’t have a team of content creators or a huge budget for content production. So the only way to maximize your resources is to create targeted, helpful, engaging content that speaks to your niche audience.
There is so much content on the internet these days, and people have very little time. Even your potential customers may be looking for your service or product. Still, they don’t want to spend a lot of time trying to figure out what you do.
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- Be very clear about what your product or service does.
- Explain how it helps them.
- Stress the value of your offerings.
- Create content that will jump out and grab their attention and make them want to know more.
Repurposing that content extends the shelf-life of your hard work. Furthermore, not all of your customers interact with content similarly. By repurposing, you can take the same content asset and turn it into content types that appeal to everyone in your audience.
3. Engage With Your Audience
Engaging with your audience is critical for building trust and loyalty and helping you grow your organic reach.
Respond to comments, questions, and messages as quickly as possible. Most customers today expect an answer within 24 hours.
Ask your customers for feedback and suggestions.
Participate in online forums or groups that are related to your niche.
Be responsive, authentic, and respectful. You’ll build trust and a team of brand ambassadors who will spread the word about your services or products. As we’ve often said on this blog, word-of-mouth marketing still works!
4. Use Hashtags
If you’re marketing on Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, or LinkedIn, you’ll want to use relevant hashtags to elevate the visibility of your organic content.
Part of creating personas is identifying the topics your audience follows. You’ll want to use the same hashtags they use to search for content or brands in your posts.
Finally, use holiday and trending hashtags to grow your organic reach. Just be sure the hashtags are truly relevant to your content.
You can also create your own hashtag to grow your organic reach.
Your personal hashtag could be the name of your brand or your brand tagline, or something else that distinguishes you from the competition. Use your unique brand hashtag on every post across all your digital channels. Encourage your audience to follow your hashtag. It’s another way to ensure that they see your content.
5. Stay On Top Of Social Media Trends
Set aside time to track real-time social media trends. Of course, things don’t change daily. Still, as social media channels look for ways to grow their user audience and ad revenues, they frequently adjust their algorithms. Demographics also change. At first, you might discover that most of your audience is on TikTok. But as global events unfold or the demographics of your niche audience shift, they could gravitate to Instagram. You’ll want to stay on top of industry data and statistics to learn the latest about where to find your niche audience.
6. Publish User-Generated Content To Grow Your Organic Reach
In a Forbes article, “The Rise of User-Generated Content And Its Impact On Brand Loyalty And Affinity, Ashlee Piga, CEO of Lotus Digital, stresses the importance of consumer-based marketing. USG content differentiates you from your competition and helps keep your brand “top of mind” when your potential customer is ready to purchase.
Content and messaging that creates memories in your target audience are critical. Most consumers are not ready to make a purchase when they are searching or scrolling through their newsfeeds. But USG content cements a memory and a feeling of trust in your brand. As a result, your business will float to the top of the list when they’re ready to buy.
User-generated content will help you grow your organic reach and scale your business.
7. Post Consistently
Consistent posting is showing up for your audience. This is critical to maintaining trust in your brand.
We recommend that you choose two digital channels in addition to your website. Of course, you’ll want to be where your consumer audience is, but you don’t have to be everywhere. You don’t have the time. Choose two that match your audience’s preference and that match your style. For example, stick with Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook if you love creating images or short-form videos. If you like to write, Twitter or LinkedIn might be your choices. The point is to choose a platform that allows for the style of expression you love. Then posting consistently won’t be a burden.
8. Collaborate With Industry Colleagues
Collaborating with industry peers is one way to maximize your marketing budget and grow your organic reach. Reach out to peers who are also solopreneurs, startup founders, or have a smaller budget. Invite them to join you on a webinar or live event. If you have a podcast, invite industry peers to your show. This is an easy way to expand your audience and reach potential customers that you might not otherwise get without spending money on paid advertising.
9. Optimize Your Local SEO
Optimizing your local SEO will help you rank higher in local search returns if you have a business that serves a local audience. According to Google, the search term “**** near me” has grown exponentially over the last two years.
Use tools like Google My Business or Yelp to create a local listing for your business.
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- Be sure to use search terms that describe your services or products.
- Post company updates and product reviews.
- Share your blog articles to your business listing.
- Post photos, videos, and product demos.
- Encourage your customers to write reviews on your local business listing.
Your Google or Yelp business profile is a free and powerful way to grow your organic reach.
Bottom Line
Running a business and marketing is no easy task. But you’ll grow your organic reach by implementing the strategies discussed above.
Marketing is a marathon, not a sprint.
Stay focused, and don’t get discouraged.
Don’t be afraid to experiment. Be bold and try new things. Even if it doesn’t work out, it’s okay.
Everything is a learning experience that will provide valuable insights for future growth.
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