Having a free social media account for your business isn’t just an excuse to post sales content. Otherwise, services like Facebook Ads wouldn’t exist, would they? 

That sounds contradictory, but hear me out.

A few years ago Facebook changed their algorithm that affected millions of Facebook pages. Suddenly, businesses found their Facebook page organic reach dropping and no one could figure out why. Facebook stated that “In times like these, the most important thing we at Facebook can do is develop the social infrastructure to give people the power to build a global community that works for all of us. ”. This change has made businesses re-evaluate their content strategies.

These platforms are designed to help you build community. Not sales. Sales are what come as the result of organic brand building – not promotional ads. 

Let’s break this down.

Organic Content V Advertising

First, we need to determine what content is and what advertising is. 

Simply put, advertising is a direct sales message to the consumer that you pay for yourself. You pay platforms like Facebook to display a direct sales message to your chosen target audience. This is where we measure direct spend against ROI.

Organic content, however, is about the way you communicate with your audience to represent and build your brand. This can be broken down further:

• Brand = your reputation
  • Reputation = what PR departments typically look after
  • Relations = how your business is perceived and thought about by the public, by the community, and more importantly, your customers.

Organic Content V Promotional Content

According to Statista 88% of Facebook users are on the platform to stay in contact with friends and family. 

Now imagine you’re on there, and all you’re doing is pushing ads out constantly. You’ve even targeted your perfect audience; this should be a no brainer for them, right? 

Wrong.

Your audience is going to ignore you; because you’re just another pushy salesman trying to get their money. There’s no value in them engaging with your posts or even clicking on them. You’ve given them no reason to care about you. 

Wave goodbye to your conversion rates!

This is because platforms like Facebook will bury your posts in news feeds, right at the bottom – because you’re content isn’t about building a community that engages with you. It’s just about selling a product. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn are all about providing a good experience to their users, they will only show content and pages that prove themselves to do so. 

Let’s take a look at a different scenario:

You know 88% of Facebook users use it to stay in contact with friends and family. So, you decided to give them something that stops them from scrolling through their feeds; maybe it’s a post on best movies to watch on a night in with family and friends. Now, you might think this has nothing to do with your company – and that’s right. Because it’s not about you – it’s about your audience. By tapping into their interests, they start to ask who you are, what you do and what you sell. You’ll create a sentimental bond with them, that earns their trust and loyalty, by simply talking to them. 

It’s so simple, it frightens a lot of businesses off – but it’s a proven method that works. 

The benefits of playing the long game with content

Content marketing is a slow burner. It requires consistency, patience and a bit of creativity. More importantly, it requires putting your audience first, and thinking about what content they want to consume. 

This encourages repeat customers. Even if your ad does well at selling your product, there’s no guarantee that the same customers will return. That’s because they don’t care who you are – for them, you’re not a brand worth following because you have nothing they can interact with on your page; you aren’t providing them with value. 

Put your sales messages aside. Posting a link to your website everyday doesn’t cut it – no matter how ‘great’ your current offer is. Remember, if people want to buy your product – they will buy your product, but not because you shoved an ad in their face. 

The value of audience engagement and feedback

Think about what matters to your audience. Think about what entertains your audience. Think about what educates your audience. These are all things that can give you incredibly valuable feedback when it comes to assessing what content does well, and what content doesn’t. 

However, it’s also important to note that your audience doesn’t care about things like ‘World Spaghetti Day’ (Unless you’re a spaghetti brand with incredibly passionate spaghetti lovers following you…). They want value from you. What about your content is going to keep them coming back to you? What’s going to keep them sharing your content with their friends and family? 

That’s the key to making sure you appear on those 88% of people’s feeds. Creating engaging and shareable content. 

In short, good content marketing allows you to build a devoted audience that in turn are already ‘bought into’ your business and products. They won’t buy the product because you’ve shouted about your massive discount.

They’ll buy from you because they believe in your brand – not just your product.