When it comes to your own social content, aim for 2 things: education and shares. When it comes to your brand outside of your own feed, you need earned awareness.
Instead of directing ad comment questions to DMs where nobody else sees the answer, use Instagram hashtags to consolidate answers in a hidden corner you can link to.
Build a tight-knit community of your first superfans. This group will be your initial word-of-mouth spark, but they will also be your 'Marines' in the comments. Someone has a question in your Facebook ad comment? Someone from this group will be the first to answer it and come to your defense.
If you want to test what content resonates, take 25 ideas and throw them on a Pinterest board and see what gets re-pinned. Then apply that to other channels.
The biggest benefit of social media is an audience you have direct access to. Use Instagram stories to run polls or ask for feedback. TikTok loves genuine human interaction, not the polished stuff like an Instagram feed.
Lead with education, and you'll not only have organic shares but also higher LTV customer cohorts.
When was the last time you went to a company's website and clicked 'blog' to read the content? Probably never. That's why brand blogs need to be more than just product content — they need to add real value around the customer persona.
Make organic shares your KPI for owned content. If you optimize for organic shares, you'll get 3 extra sets of eyes for every 1 that you bring. The catch is it can lead to off-brand content, so balance it.
Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest will quickly become the 'Google' for Gen Z. Make sure you communicate your WHY on your organic social channels.
60% of consumers under 30 go to social media to look up a new brand. When you hear about Liquid Death for the first time, you go straight to Instagram to see if it's legitimate. With their engagement and overflow of UGC, it becomes impossible not to try it.
The key to a great social strategy is being contextually native to each platform. Simply put, you're creating content that feels like it can only live on that specific platform.
On Instagram, you want content that gets DM'd to a friend. On Twitter, content that gets retweeted. On TikTok, content so valuable that people save it and send it into group chats.
When a TikTok video within a series goes viral — it's not a matter of IF, it's WHEN — you want more content like it to earn the follow. One-off viral videos or trend-hopping won't convert follows at a high rate.
TikTok's algorithm thrives on authenticity. Instagram is your life's highlight reel, but TikTok is where people go when they want to consume content that's REAL life and value-driven.
On social media, don't represent the brand with a logo — use a persona. People don't want to hear from corporations, they want to hear from people.
Our Instagram posts will be optimized for DM'ing friends. TikTok for content that makes you watch until the last second. Twitter for fast-scrolling education on formulations and ingredients. Be extremely native to each platform as if you're a creator.
Over 3 LinkedIn posts in one week, I generated 110,000 impressions. That would be $3,300 if I ran Facebook ads at a $30 CPM. If you're a brand under $50M doing B2B, the organic reach on LinkedIn is insane.
When the Olipop team saw the balsamic vinaigrette and sparkling water 'healthy Coke' trend go viral on TikTok, they immediately got their Vintage Cola product to the creator. That's how you move as a brand on TikTok.
With TikTok, my favorite play is either capturing people's first reaction to trying the product — sniffing the deodorant, tasting the snack, trying the sauce — or education behind parts of the product.
If your customer is someone who's still on Facebook, build a Facebook group. For products that require validation — apparel, supplements — having a Facebook group has worked really well to convert new customers. Inside the group are people ready to answer any and all questions because they're passionate about the brand.
5 years ago, content meant a blog. Unfortunately, no one reads your brand blog. When was the last time you visited a brand's site all excited to see '7 ways to use their product when camping'? Never.
Unlike paid acquisition where costs rise as you scale, with organic content, costs become cheaper as you grow. Content is a free product, and when social proof gets stronger, the barrier becomes lower for new people to explore it.
Platforms like TikTok are pushing the interest-graph heavier than the social-graph. We are now being targeted with media based on our consumption habits, versus proactively choosing the content we want to see. It's the inverse of what's happening in retail and commerce — consumers want to be the one to 'discover' and choose the brands, versus being targeted by them.
Don't forget to push every promotion, every day, to your organic social channels. It's very normal for someone to jump to your social media to look for a sale. Have someone talk through the promotions on Instagram Stories — not just a graphic.
The best way to build trust with someone new? Just give them the answers. Quality long-form written content or long-form YouTube video content — yes, YouTube counts for SEO.
You'd be surprised how many consumers look your brand up on social media before making a purchase. If you don't have good content on social, you are not trustworthy enough to give a credit card to.
More content overall means more signals of what works and what doesn't. Content drives awareness of what you're selling, making ads work more efficiently. Customers get excited to talk about your brand because you're 'cool' when you participate in the conversation. You're building brand equity over time, at a low cost.
The platforms have represented a universal change across all marketing: we went from a Following Feed to a For You Feed. TikTok led the charge, and now most social platforms have followed suit. The advertising engine that knows your every move is now serving you content in your main feed.
Where should your brand be on social? It's very dependent on your consumer. Too often brands get caught up in what the c-suite wants to see, but if your customer is on Reddit looking for recommendations with high intent, you should be there. If they're on YouTube because they need long-form content, be there pumping out as much content as possible.
When you're running Meta ads, a huge percentage of interested consumers will swipe over to your Instagram. If you don't have your highlights properly merchandised at the top with UGC or customer love, you may miss the opportunity to convert. Jolie's Instagram exclusively has reviews at the top, for this reason.
Ride trends and current events with your creative. A fast-follow on great social trends can be amazing when it pops. When a trending skit or format goes viral, making creative that follows the format can drive outsized results.
Trump's team treats their website blog like their own news publication, writing headlines they know will have dark social sharing rewards — ending up in group chats and forums. Brands should use their blog as their own press center.
You don't need to chase trends for organic video views. Genuinely talking about your product in an exciting way is enough. Pretend you're explaining your company to a 6th grader.
Isaac from Mini Katana spends over $100K/month on organic content. That investment has driven 8+ figures in revenue without paid ads. He couldn't run paid marketing on katanas since weapons are a blocked ad category, so his organic strategy has a higher ROAS than most paid efforts I've seen.
A strong organic content engine does four things: diversifies sales away from paid, makes paid efforts cheaper from the halo effect, develops critical learnings about what offers and hooks resonate, and lets you test concepts cheaply before running paid.
Your highest LTV customers tend to come from organic search and discovery. SEO is a long-term bet, but it's worth it.
Levels Health drove their first few millions in revenue from their website blog — hundreds of valuable articles on topics related to their products, improving SEO while educating prospects.
Kanpai Foods did 8 months' worth of revenue — $1M — last year in just 6 weeks this year. All directly attributable to their content machine generating 50 million views per month. They're sold in Target retail as a result. Watch their content and you'll realize how much you're overthinking what you put out.
Reddit is one of the highest ranked sources for organic search and AI models like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude. Make sure you know what's being said about you on Reddit — and if nothing, make a plan to get on there.
Don't just launch and hope others will talk about your brand. You need to create a world of buzz. Tap into platforms that offer free reach for good content — TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts. Coordinate with influencers to post on launch day.
Clipping is a top-of-funnel channel that doesn't get much attention yet. Gambling sites used it first. All the big performance marketing DTC brands are spending on it now, and in the next two years, everyone else will catch up.
Find niche Instagram accounts like @SoYummy, @Foooodieee, @LAEats, @TraderJoesList to seed product to. These accounts are authorities when it comes to Instagram's recommendation algorithm and help you find new audiences while you sleep.
Stop responding to the same DM questions one by one. Create a FAQ hashtag (like #BrandFAQ) on a secondary Instagram account with 9 posts answering the most common questions. When someone comments a question, reply with the hashtag. Scales your customer education infinitely.
Most people under 40 now use Instagram to look things up from brands, not just Google. If the majority of your DMs and customer service tickets come from the same few things, make it easy for potential customers to become educated right on the platform.
When building a media arm separate from your brand blog, find what content will do well by scrolling publisher Facebook pages and looking for articles with high shares + comments — then create similar topics in a format that's already proven to go viral.
To do well organically on TikTok as a brand, hire a creator for $4-6k/month to put out 1-2 videos per day. If 2 videos 'pop' in a month, this person pays for themselves and makes you a 'cool brand' in the eyes of TikTokers.
Step 1 of building a brand TikTok: only engage with accounts in your niche — follow, like, comment, save, share only from your category. You're training the algorithm to place you in a niche. Be extremely selective from the beginning.
For TikTok, write out detailed buyer personas, then map content series to each one. When a video within a series goes viral — and it's WHEN, not IF — you want more content like it to earn the follow. One-off viral videos or trend videos won't convert followers at a high rate.
Each Snapchat should feel like someone just took it in real-time for their closest friends. Each Instagram story should feel like it's capturing a moment worth sharing. Each tweet should entice retweets because it represents who people are. Content that's not getting engagement isn't helping you — it's probably cringe-worthy to younger consumers.
60% of consumers under 30 go to social media to look up a new brand. When someone hears about Liquid Death for the first time, they go straight to Instagram. With their engagement rate, follower count, and overflow of UGC, it becomes impossible to not want to try it. For CPG, the goal is always to drive trial — 'cans in hands.'
Christina Tosi used Netflix and Kyle Cooke used Bravo to build awareness for Milk Bar and LoverBoy respectively. Creating content is hard, but distribution can be harder — borrow existing media platforms to reach audiences you couldn't build on your own.
Use Quantcast Measure (free pixel on your site) to see what your customers are into, then build a content calendar for the next month based on that alone. At Hint Water, this is exactly what we did to fuel our content engine.
Facebook Groups still convert for products that require validation — apparel, supplements, anything where trust matters. Inside the group are passionate customers ready to answer every question a prospect has. Some brands even run ads to get people into the FB group first, knowing the content will convert them later.
The playbook for growing a new CPG brand: hire a content creator (like the person behind Olipop's TikTok) to produce organic content across Twitter, TikTok, and Reels. When something does well organically, put paid dollars behind it. Paid media becomes a form of expanding what is already working — not the starting point.
Glossier didn't have 5 full-time employees managing Instagram DMs for no reason. Follow up with customers 30-60-90 days after they tag you in a story. Keep a list of VIPs in Google Sheets. Seed new products to them early. The more you get them involved, the higher their LTV.
Hire a 'Press Secretary' for your brand — a full-time short-form content creator who films 1-2 videos per day, understands the algorithm, manages social channels, and builds influencer relationships. Someone internal has ears close to CS issues and ops updates, and can turn content in hours, not weeks.
Content distribution is shifting from a 'following' feed to an AI-curated interest feed. Content either HITS or gets almost no distribution. The $50k photo shoot that ended up with 43 likes on Instagram stings. Distribution matters as much as the content itself.
For organic social, you can do it really well with 2-3 people. The setup I recommend: 1 person focused on content, brand, and creator management, and a second person as coordinator/assistant. You can't rely on one person to handle content creation, creator coordination, product seeding, ad comments, graphics, stories, DMs, and influencer outreach.
If you don't pay enough attention to putting out organic content, you'll be paying for the delta in your advertising. Social platforms today don't charge for impressions — it's a no-brainer to invest in building awareness on platforms where reach is free.
Kendall Dickieson drove 6-figure revenue weeks through organic social for a skincare brand launch. She's the reason every celebrity has Graza in their home and why Canopy drives so much revenue from influencers-turned-affiliates. That's the caliber of social person you want.
Adult users spend an average of 54 minutes per day on TikTok — 64% more time than the same cohort of Instagram users spend on Instagram. Attention is the currency, and TikTok has more of it.
Isaac Medeiros of Mini Katana produces over 500 million views per month across social channels. He also started Kanpai Foods, a freeze-dried candy business doing millions of views per month. He tweets constantly about arbitraging awareness in ways no one else is.
Reddit has 1.22 billion users and a fresh $60M Google partnership boosting its visibility — it's a massive untapped opportunity for affiliate marketing. Pro tip: oddly-specific discounts (23% off instead of 20%) significantly boost conversions on Reddit because they feel authentic, not corporate.
A good organic social team is 2-3 people: a Head of Social to define strategy and oversee operations, a channel manager who presses publish (one person can handle 2-3 platforms max), and functional experts like designers, video editors, or community managers. If you're trying to grow on more than 2 platforms to start, you're doing too much.
Kendall Dickieson's approach to building social: find underrated talent — designers or illustrators — who can take briefs and turn them into beautiful brand-first posts. You don't need a fancy agency. Find a small circle of reliable people from Oceans, UpWork, or LinkedIn from around the world.