For years, marketers have placed organic social media in their marketing media mix to drive “top-of-funnel awareness,” a supportive channel that drives visibility and engagement. Meanwhile, the performance-related activities (leads, sign-ups, and sales) were left to “performance channels” like SEO, Google Ads, and paid social.
Sure, we occasionally see organic social campaigns go viral, which drives millions of views, comments, and conversions during the peak virality of the content. But these conversions phase out, hence why organic social has always been viewed as a slow, engagement-driven tactic with little direct impact on the bottom line.
In this blog, we want to explore the other side of the story: what if organic social could be a true growth lever? What if those consistent, daily efforts (comments, posts, DMs, and content we’re delivering) drive business impact in ways we have only begun to understand?
It’s perhaps an apt time to stop thinking of organic social as the sidekick and recognize it for what it is becoming: a powerful, compounding engine for discovery, trust, and conversion.
In this blog, we will cover:
- Why organic social has been undervalued in growth marketing
- How to rethink the funnel with organic social at the center
- The evolving digital ecosystem that’s tilting the game in organic’s favor
- A step-by-step strategy to make your organic content move the needle
Why Has Organic Social Been Undervalued for Growth Marketing?
Growth marketers love predictability. We are trained to chase the numbers: CAC, RoAS, LTV, you name it.
The equation is simple: Spend X, Get Y. Repeat if LTV > CAC.
It’s clean. It’s trackable. It’s immediate.
Organic search doesn’t work like that, but has still found a lot of value amongst marketers with how it’s able to drive business success over a period of time. Marketers learned patience as they realized good SEO practices are bound to bring results in the long run.
But organic social is different; it doesn’t plug neatly into this formula. The results compound, attribution is murky, and feedback loops take longer. So it feels inefficient. But inefficiency isn’t the same as ineffectiveness.
Organic social isn’t about instant transactions. It’s about earning attention, building trust, and creating a distribution channel that you don’t have to keep paying for.
And when you zoom out, the digital behavior shift is undeniable; it’s perhaps the time to reframe how we think about organic social.
Rethinking the Funnel: Organic Social Strategy as the Growth Driver
There are some major changes taking place which could redefine how organic social content is used by search platforms (in both traditional and AI search spaces) to show results.
1. Social Content Is Equal to Website Content
For most brands, the most profitable and reliable channel has always been organic search. Based on what we’ve seen, it could contribute to anywhere from 15% to 80% of a company’s total traffic and conversions, depending on how big the brand is and the industry it’s in.
But now, the boundaries between social and search are blurring.
On July 10, 2025, Instagram announced that it will let Google, Bing, and other search engines crawl and index public content from professional accounts. That includes photos, videos, carousels, and Reels that were posted on or after January 1, 2020. If you’re a business or creator account and your profile is public, your content can now show up in search results, just like any other webpage.
Your Instagram profile is no longer just a gallery; it’s a collection of potential landing pages, each one a new doorway for customers to discover you.
2. The Search Revolution
The very definition of what it means to “search” is changing. While the traditional platforms still hold a significant share, the dependency on only a select few search platforms is going away.
Users are adopting newer methods of searches including social search and AI searches. As AI voice assistants become smarter thanks to Gen AI models that are powering them (hello voice search); any way you spin it, the search ecosystem is becoming more fragmented than ever.
If we speak about organic social as a search engine, 46% of Gen Z and 35% of Millennials prefer social media over traditional search engines, and 44% of Gen Z discover new brands on social media daily, as per a report by Forbes.
Why? The reasons are simple, and profoundly human.
- It’s Immediate: They get the latest visual, dynamic answers in seconds.
- It’s Relatable: The content is from real people, not just brands.
- It’s Socially Vetted: The results are backed by social proof (likes, comments, and shares) from their peers, not an algorithm.
Audiences aren’t just searching for restaurants or products; they are researching complex topics, learning new skills, and forming their opinions on brands. If your brand isn’t part of this social conversation, you are virtually invisible to this generation of consumers.
3. The Rise of AI Search, Where Reputation = Ranking
The rise of AI search platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity is the final piece of the puzzle. This new frontier of search led to a new discipline: Answer Engine Optimization (AEO).
Unlike traditional search engines that heavily rely on technical factors like backlinks, AI Search models are designed to understand context, nuance, and sentiment. They learn from the entire web, including the vast conversations happening on social media.
When a user asks an AI search, “What’s the best running shoe for beginners?” or “Is Brand X a good company?”, the AI doesn’t just scan keywords. It synthesizes product reviews, reads customer comments across review platforms, analyzes the tone of content, and assesses the overall sentiment surrounding your brand.
In this new world, your digital reputation is your ranking. A brand that is consistently praised by its customers on social platforms will be described favorably by AI. A brand with a trail of negative comments and unresolved complaints will see that sentiment reflected in its AI search results. Your organic social presence is now actively training the AI that will define your brand to millions.
How to Support Meta’s New Indexing Framework
1. Use a Public Professional Account (Critical for Indexing)
The July 2025 Instagram indexing update only applies to public Business or Creator accounts (for users aged 18+). Make sure you have the right account in place for your brand to maximize visibility in social searches.
2. Write Clear, Keyword-Rich Captions
Treat your captions like mini blog posts: front-load them with relevant search keywords that describe the post content (but don’t get keyword-stuffy).
This helps Google understand what the post is about. Additionally, treat your Instagram posts, Facebook posts, Reels, carousels, and profile bios as searchable web content (because they are).
3. Leverage Reels for Visibility
Google has a new tab in its search results page for Short videos. Instagram Reels are central to this rollout, and are already generating significant visibility in Google search.
Focus on creating short-form video content that is both engaging for social media users, while still being optimized with keywords for search engines.
4. Use Descriptive Alt Text on Images
Instagram and Facebook allow you to manually enter image alt text. This is critical for both accessibility and search engines. When writing optimized alt text, be sure to:
- Describe what’s in the image accurately
- Include relevant keywords naturally (again, avoid keyword stuffing)
5. Treat Hashtags as Meta Tags
Use 5-10 high-intent, niche, and local hashtags to help the algorithm (and now Google’s index) understand your content’s theme. Think of these as secondary keywords.
6. Geo-Tag Your Posts (Especially for Local or Service Brands)
Adding a location (city, neighborhood, venue) helps your post appear in local Google searches. This aligns with keyword-local intent and improves visibility; especially for businesses targeting local traffic.
Organic Social Strategy as a Growth Lever: A Step-by-Step Guide
Step 1: Define the Role of Organic Social in Your Growth Funnel
Start by asking: what job does organic social do for us right now? If the answer is “get likes” or “improve brand sentiment,” you’re thinking too small.
Organic social can, and should, support the full funnel:
- TOFU (Top of Funnel): Spark attention from your target market with thought leadership, storytelling, and relatable content.
- MOFU (Middle): Educate and nurture interested users with product demos, comparisons, and explainers.
- BOFU (Bottom): Convert high-intent audiences with social proof, case studies, and testimonials.
The “Rule of 7” in marketing suggests that a prospect needs to encounter your brand message at least seven times before taking action. While not a hard rule, it underscores the importance of consistent, repeated exposure across channels.
Organic social excels here. It allows brands to stay present in the feed, in conversation, and in context without spending a dollar per impression.
Step 2: Build Content Pillars
Create content that fits your strategic business intent. The number of pillars can vary, but we recommend that you begin with at least three content pillars.
Identify 3-5 content pillars at the intersection of:
- What your audience cares about
- What your product enables
- What your team can speak to credibly
Something to keep in mind while you’re identifying your pillars is to also assign each of them a place in the funnel. Here’s the type of content that typically falls under each part of the customer funnel:
- TOFU: Educational content, guides, industry trend reports, infographics
- MOFU: Comparisons, case studies, webinars, explainer videos
- BOFU: Comparisons with strong CTAs, testimonials and reviews, pricing information, detailed breakdowns
Each pillar feeds your content calendar and allows structured experimentation across formats and platforms.
Step 3: Turn Anchor Content Into Multi-Platform
Treat organic social channels and their content as a distribution engine; this is the art of repurposing content, a vital component of organic social strategy.
- Create one anchor asset (e.g., a webinar, podcast, founder interview, or case study).
- Break it down into:
- 5–10 video clips (for Reels, Shorts, and LinkedIn)
- Carousels
- Quote graphics
- Email snippets
- X or Threads-length posts
- Blog summaries or LinkedIn posts
Step 4: Measure What Matters
Attribution for organic social content is not perfect, but here’s how you can start measuring what matters from a growth perspective:
Look at directional indicators and trendlines; not just isolated metrics.
Step 5: Optimize for AI Search
A study by Goodie AI shows how the traffic from AI searches is far more valuable in terms of conversion as compared to the traditional searches.
After analyzing over 100,000 leads, the study concluded that while AI search traffic is still contributing to only 6% of total sessions, it converted at 2x the rate when compared to traditional search channels (primarily due to context-rich and trust-centric content).
Step 6: Align Paid & SEO to Amplify Organic Social
Just as alignment between organic and paid search initiatives empowers the success of growth strategies, we can also let the magic of unified campaigns work for organic social:
- Use paid media to amplify high-performing organic content (e.g. boosted posts). Use the most engaged with organic social content to further drive conversions through a dedicated paid performance campaign.
- Build retargeting audiences for paid advertising based on video viewership demographic data.
- Use SEO insights to build sought-after social explainer content, or use social insights to inform your next SEO content cluster.
Organic Social Strategy: Final Thoughts
Organic social is a core part of how modern growth happens. It drives brand discovery, builds trust, powers SEO and AI visibility, and influences buying decisions long before a user ever lands on your site. Unlike paid channels, organic doesn’t switch off when the budget runs out. It compounds.
It’s absolutely fair for brands to rely on paid media ads to drive immediate conversions. However, being solely dependent on paid media and not having an organic social strategy in place can be a recipe for disaster in the long term.
The brands who want to win tomorrow are already investing in organic today; not as support, but as a system.
