Is Organic Growth Dead on Social Media?

Mark Twain once famously said, “The report of my death is an exaggeration.”

The same can be said about the death of organic growth on social media.

Like Twain, who had changed by getting older but was still very much alive, organic growth on social media is evolving but still very much alive.

Lets discuss this!

What happened?

The Golden Age of social media, like all good things came to an end. (Some might say with a whimper and not a bang.)

The easy salad days when our content went out to our entire community and then some are now just fond memories.

Social media channels are trying to move users into pay to play models by changing their algorithms. (I’ll go into the details another time, its take too long now.)

Then there is the recent political climate in the US caused by the hubbub from the 2016 Presidential election that has still not subsided.

Social media channels are now making it difficult to add followers and use third party tools.

Examples are Twitter and Crowdfire, and Facebook restricting its API.

Both channels have severely restricted how third party tools can interact with them.

Undoubtedly there will be more to come.

Inevitably, the pundits are saying that organic growth on social media is dead and the only way to grow is to spend money on ads or whatever other features a particular social media channel is offering to its members.

Im here to say au contraire! (I took French in high school and university and try to use it whenever I can.)

Heres why all is not lost!

Yes, social media is changing, it always has and it always will.

The basic blocking and tackling of social media best practices still hold.

Good profiles, engagement with your community, and content (Both yours and that of others) will still help you grow organically.

Social media has always been a long term play. There never was a silver bullet.

Yes, in the early days, there was rapid growth for early adopters.

Many more by happenstance than planning and these were aberrations not trends.

It may take longer now but the basics will still stand you well on social media.

Regardless of whether or not social media is dead, you still need to be on it especially if youre a small to mid-sized player.

Youre dead if youre not on social media.

Your prospects will either think youre hiding or are behind the times.

And youre worse than dead on social media if you dont observe the basic blocking and tackling of good profiles, engagement, and good content mentioned above because youre a laughingstock.

So, keep at your social media program and it will pay off for you in the long term.

Thats it for now!

Please check-out my 8 step approach for developing a social media program to get some more ideas on how to use social media.
Also, never forget to reach out to either ask questions or to ask for help from someone like myself!

In the meantime, thank you for following and reading my blog!

I look forward to any and all comments that you may have. I will reply to any comments made to this blog post as promptly as I can.

Remember!

I do this for a living and if I can be of any assistance to either you or your organization, please feel free to call on me. Our initial discussion will be of no charge to you.

I can also be reached at conpsweeney@someddi.com.

My Twitter handle is @conpsweeney.

Stay well!