The Significance of Organic Social Media
With 10 major social platforms across the landscape, algorithms changing at the drop of a hat, and attention spans shorter than ever, brands need help cutting through social noise to reach their audiences. Savvy marketers turn to skillful Social Media Managers for guidance.
On our latest episode of the Marketing Roundtable podcast, we dive into social media and answer some of the most common questions with BrainDo’s own Social Media Manager, Rachel Rhodes.
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After graduating from Temple University with a Bachelor of Arts in Advertising, Rachel moved abroad to South Korea. During the day, she worked as a Content Manager for a small cosmetics brand, writing video scripts and managing other influencers. By night, she was filming, editing, and building up her own brand as a travel and lifestyle YouTuber.
By the time she moved back stateside, Rachel had organically amassed over 16,000 subscribers and surpassed 1.8 million total views. Still, she was eager for new opportunities.
Enter long-time friend and BrainDo designer, Tatiana Knies-Smith. Tatiana encouraged Rachel to interview for a content position at BrainDo, and the rest is history.
According to Rachel, social media management has four key elements:
For more prominent brands blessed with budget and bandwidth, tackling any and every platform is easy. But what about the businesses that need additional time and/or energy? Should they strive to be on every platform? The answer may surprise you.
Rachel suggests that being on every social media platform is purely optional.
“LinkedIn and Facebook are kind of the starter kit,” she explains. “If you want to build from there, you need to assess where your audience is [and] what your team’s bandwidth is.”
But not all platforms are created equal. Even after identifying where your audience is, there’s no clear path to victory. The road is twisting, turning, and may look different today than it did yesterday.
This is a path every social media manager has had to learn to navigate in order to succeed. This is … drum roll … the power of the “almighty algorithm.”
After joking that organic social media algorithms are like faceless gods, Rachel clarifies the state of play: The algorithm of any given social platform sets the rules by which we must abide to achieve the best results.
And algorithms are evolving rapidly—especially with competition from other brands and emerging trends. Rachel shares an example in Instagram Reels, a feature rolled out to compete with short-form video giant TikTok.
“When Reels came out, they were huge. They were great for explosive growth,” she affirms. “People were seeing reach, new followers…it was really, really being promoted in the algorithm. And there was this feeling of, ‘Okay, geez, if you want to succeed on Instagram, you need to be posting Reels.'”
The conversation then flows into a cautionary tale of how one video going viral can negatively impact the algorithm for weeks (or even months!) after the fact. In times of confusion, niching down in your content, language, and hashtag strategy is critical.
As a seasoned Social Media Manager and micro-influencer who has worked on every side of the organic social landscape, Rachel brings a unique perspective to marketing. Tune into the full podcast episode to hear more wisdom on niching down, the future of the creator economy, and how brands can improve their social presence today.
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