Is Organic Social Media Marketing Dead in 2025
Published on 11.08.2025 by Chizoba T
In the past, businesses could generate sales by posting organic content on social media. Additionally, when they posted, it received a lot of engagement. However, organic reach and conversion have significantly decreased on most major social media platforms, causing brands to combine organic content with paid social media marketing.
This has led to the question of whether organic social media is dead. In this article, we will address this question and offer practical tips on boosting your organic reach on social media.
What is Organic Reach on Social Media?
Organic reach refers to the number of people who see your social media post without relying on paid ads. During the early days of social media, whenever you posted something, it would appear in your followers' feeds. However, this became impossible as the number of social media users increased and posts continued to rise, explaining why people are not engaging with your content.
Nowadays, every social media platform has a proprietary algorithm that determines the distribution of content and the people who view your posts. All social media algorithms aim to keep users engaged on the platform. They use different signals to determine the content that keeps users more engaged.
Therefore, social media algorithms determine the organic reach of content. Even when the algorithm changes, the impact on social media marketers can be significant. This means it's crucial to understand the Instagram algorithm when using IG reels to increase your reach and visibility.
Is Organic Reach on Social Media Decreasing?
There is no doubt that organic reach has been decreasing across different social media platforms. According to Social Status, which collates the monthly reach of various social media platforms, Facebook's organic reach in June 2025 was 2.2%, compared to 5.2% in 2020.
A Social Insider report indicates that, by 2025, Instagram's organic reach is expected to be 3.5%. As a B2B powerhouse, LinkedIn boasts one of the highest organic reach rates, at around 6.4%. The trend of decreasing organic reach is also evident on Google, where the March 2024 update made it harder for small businesses to succeed. Today, the organization prioritizes big companies with large audiences and strong authority.
Reasons For the Declining Organic Reach
Now that we understand that organic reach is falling, let's discuss some of the top causes of the decline. These are:
The Algorithm Favors Ads
There is no doubt that social media platforms are in business and make money from advertising. This means they prioritize sponsored posts while reducing the reach of organic posts. This is especially the case on Facebook and Instagram, where priority is given to sponsored posts. Therefore, if you want to reach large masses on these platforms, the platform nudges users to pay.
Platform Policies
Facebook users are now shown content from accounts they do not follow. Some sources indicate that around half of the content appearing on Facebook is from unconnected sources. This means people interested in your niche may see some of your posts even when they do not follow you. It also means that the people who follow you are not shown most of your content, but rather the content of other accounts.
This indicates that the number of followers doesn't affect the reach of your content on Facebook. There are times when a small account will occasionally go viral, while a big account gets zero traction. Organic marketing is now almost a gamble on Facebook, as only a few of your followers are shown your posts.
Content Saturation
With over 5.4 billion creative social media users, the number of posts appearing on social media platforms is increasing. This means platforms are now forced to filter and rank content to determine what to show users and what to ignore, which is why even the most relevant posts still struggle to gain visibility.
Encouraging Ad Spend
According to one study, a drop in organic reach is often accompanied by brand offerings to boost ads or posts to compensate. That means social media platforms often kill posts' organic reach to encourage users to pay for ads.
Changing the Behavior of Users
Social media users have become accustomed to feeds curated by algorithms. The algorithms on TikTok and Facebook now promote viral content, often ignoring business updates. If you want your content to be highly engaging, focus on creating engaging posts.
How to Overcome a Declining Organic Reach
To help you overcome the challenge of a declining organic reach, follow these tips:
Understand Your Audience
Nowadays, social media platforms prioritize engagement and interaction over the number of followers. Unless you understand your audience and the type of content likely to resonate with them, creating content that meets their needs can be hard. Therefore, start by researching your audience to understand the type of content likely to resonate with them. After that, you can create content that they will find relevant and helpful.
Focus on Quality over Quantity
For a long time, social media platforms have prioritized quality over quantity. According to one HubSpot study, if a brand has fewer than 10K followers and posts more than twice a day, it sees 60% fewer clicks. Many social media users also suggest that they don't like low-quality content. While consistency in your posting is essential, it should not come at the expense of quality.
Create More Video Content
Video content has one of the highest engagement rates. When social algorithms determine that your videos are getting higher engagement, they are more likely to promote them. This is especially the case when your video can hold the viewer's attention for more than three minutes. Use videos to increase engagement, but don't overdo it. A good idea would be to mix video and static content.
Understand the Best Posting Time
Posting at a time when your audience is online can help you increase your post's organic reach. Since the algorithm considers the user’s first interaction with the post, when they see a high engagement on your post, it will promote the post more, resulting in a higher organic reach.
Avoid Being Oversalesy
One of the top ways to kill the organic reach of your social media posts is by being overly salesy. With social media users looking for more authentic posts, creating too many sales posts will reduce the engagement rate and ultimately kill the organic reach of your post. While there is nothing wrong with a few promotional posts, make sure most of your posts are helpful. Creating posts that encourage discussions in the comments section would also be helpful.
Conclusion
While the organic reach of social media posts isn't dead, there is no doubt that this is where it is headed. This is especially true for brands that struggle to create content that drives engagement and, consequently, reaches a wider audience. If you are wondering how to overcome a declining organic reach, our detailed guide will help you do that.