In years past, it was proclamations that email was dead. This year, some naysayers have turned their attention to organic content, saying its time has come and gone. Just like with email, though, the critics are mistaken, and a lot of it has to do with a misunderstanding of the term itself.
What Puts the Organic in Organic Content Marketing?
Organic content marketing is not something that just springs to life like organic produce, but it is the seed that all good content marketing grows from. It’s carefully constructed, tested, and promoted in a deliberate way.
Organic content has historically been used by brands in place of paid ads, appearing on people’s social media feeds “naturally.” The emphasis has always been on creating quality content that customers discovered, liked, were interested in, and shared with their followers. What has changed over the years is how brands perceive organic content is affecting their bottom line.
Related: Why Content Strategy Is The Real King
Getting Heard Through All the Chatter
As social media has exploded, there’s been a huge increase in competition. Brands struggle to be seen and heard and, as a result, believe their organic content is less effective than it once was. The decline, though, is due more to changes in social media algorithms. Facebook, for example, changed its news feed algorithm, reducing the reach of brand content. Social media users may be thrilled, but for brands, it’s added yet another challenge in the marketing wars.
The Roles of Organic vs. Paid Content
The basics are fairly simple:
- Organic content marketing uses free tools provided by social media networks to build an online social community and then interact with it via shared posts and responses to customer comments and questions.
- Paid ads have associated costs based on the type of ad, such as display or pay per click.
Organic marketing is the ideal option for community management. It lets you listen to what your audience is saying about or to you and is a great way to engage with your targeted groups. For example, by using hashtags, you can gather all related posts into a searchable thread that lets people easily join the conversation.
Related: Why Is a Content Strategy Important to Business?
Organic and Content Marketing Working Together
Today, organic marketing very much relies on content marketing and vice versa. Convergence in marketing, in fact, is crucial to a company’s growth and financial success.
Being found organically in search results attracts website traffic, making it possible to engage with people and, hopefully, convert them into loyal customers. And it doesn’t cost you a dime to do it. But the only way to be ranked higher on search result pages is by – you guessed it – creating quality content. Marketers need to keep this circular process in mind, as studies show that content and organic searches are working well together.
The Bottom Line
It’s clear by now that organic content marketing, while easy to understand, requires quite a bit of effort to successfully pull off:
- Doing keyword research for terms your targeted audience is searching for.
- Creating great content, such as blog posts, that people want to read and share.
- Collecting email addresses and perfecting email campaigns.
Developing a good organic content strategy can help make any brand a stronger competitor. A solid organic approach to marketing improves an organization’s online presence and reputation. There’s no question that the results of a well-executed campaign are worth every effort it takes. To learn more, check out our white paper, "What is a Digital Content Strategy? And Why You Need One."
