How to drive organic social media growth in 2025

LinkedIn posts and industry headlines would have you believe organic social media is dead. Breathing its last gasp. Being shoved aside in favor of pay-to-play approaches.

Yet, organic social media persists. It now requires more strategy, time and resources, but dismissing it entirely in favor of paid ads is shortsighted. There’s still real value to be found in focusing on organic growth.

According to The Sprout Social Index™ 2025, 54% of marketing leaders will use overall engagement as a measure of social media success in 2025. Ads can expose your brand to new audiences, but meaningful engagement requires organic content that builds community with current and new followers alike. Once they’ve clicked follow on your account, they’ll want to see more than promotional content popping up in their feeds every day.

Here’s our guide to organic social media growth techniques for 2025, and a few examples of brands creating stellar organic content for inspiration.

What is organic social media growth?

Organic social media growth is an approach to growing your audience on social with organic content. Organic content is any piece of social media content that you post for free, with no funds put toward promotion or boosting meant to increase conversions or reach.

Paid social posts are often designed for specific campaigns, and are boosted through paid advertising. Though the two approaches differ, you don’t have to think of it as organic social vs. paid social. Both have a place.

Organic content is a space for community and building authentic relationships with audiences. While ads and paid social media are meant to raise awareness or increase sales.

Organic content focuses on long-term sustainability and trust-building instead of short-term gains. An organic post may not drive a customer to make a purchase immediately, but it can encourage them to continue coming back to your content in the future.

Is organic social media growth still possible?

Many marketers fear organic social media is becoming obsolete, largely due to ever-changing algorithms that prioritize paid content.

On Reddit, marketing-focused subreddits are filled with frustration around low interactions and impressions, even for brand accounts with 10,000+ followers. Some worry success in organic growth is being tainted by buying followers or engaging with bots.

Yet, many seasoned social marketers believe organic growth is still achievable, albeit challenging.

The key? Consistency. Growing a social media account organically takes time and dedication. Those that continue pushing ahead and making adjustments as they go are seeing the rewards in terms of community building.

Brand loyalty isn’t built overnight—it stems from great products, strong customer service, authentic values and sustained engagement. Organic social media is the key ingredient in bringing all of those pieces together.

8 organic social media growth techniques to try in 2025

Let’s break down the most important strategies for organic growth so you can make the most of your social media marketing strategy this year.

1. Focus on the quality of your output

Quantity of posts is a key consideration, but there’s simply no replacement for quality content. Posting consistently subpar content just to get a post up won’t do your brand any favors.

Crafting quality content starts with listening to your audience. According to the 2025 Sprout Social Index, 46% of consumers say content originality is what makes their favorite brands stand out on social media.

Instead of churning out social media calendars months in advance and posting ten times a day, focus on crafting timely, relevant content that sets your brand apart from competitors. Intentionally using trends is great, but original content should be the foundation of your strategy.

Kendall Dickieson, Social Media and Influencer Consultant for brands like Graza and Zab’s, and a member of the Sprout Social Index Council, cautions against stressing over arbitrary posting goals.

“So many brands are setting wildly ambitious publishing goals,” Dickieson explained. “Cadence doesn’t directly correlate with community growth.”

2. Invest in your audience’s favorite networks

Listening closely to what your audience wants from your organic content will also inform what networks they prefer. Thanks to social media fragmentation, gone are the days of a few go-to social media sites. Audiences are on more apps than ever, though your brand doesn’t need to be on every single one. Users engage with each network differently in terms of content consumption or sharing. Focus on the ones your audience is using the most, whether it’s an established network or an emerging platform.

Briana Doe, founder of the Verbatim Agency and Index Council member, said it’s tempting for brands to try reaching their audience in as many spaces as possible, but that being everything to everyone is a fruitless endeavor.

“There are so many platforms and ways that brands can show up online. It’s tempting to believe you have to be everywhere”, Doe said. “Provide what your current and prospective audience members are looking for—be intentional instead of trying to be everything to everyone. Don’t chase shiny objects. It’s more important to build community and trust on priority platforms.”

Tracking and comparing the performance of different networks can guide you to the top platforms for your audience. Analytics tools like Sprout Social’s Cross-Network Profile Performance Report will show you a comparative graph to easily identify which of your social profiles is receiving the most growth and engagement.

3. Participate in trends—wisely

Trends shift constantly, and you’ll need to be adept at online culture and know what’s most relevant to your audience to select the right ones. The Sprout Social Index 2025 highlighted an interesting tension in how social media practitioners and consumers view trends online. 98% of practitioners said that social content must keep up with online trends and culture. While consumers mostly agree, around half said that original content is what makes their favorite brands memorable. Yet, almost all respondents stated they want brands to understand online culture even if they don’t participate in it.

So what does this mean? Basically, brands need to find that “just right” balance of relevancy and resonance.

This requires identifying the trending topics and formats that your audience enjoys most. Social media listening is a critical strategy to find that perfect mix of trends and original content. It will help you uncover trends that might fit your brand even if they’re not specifically tied to your products or industry. For example, we tapped the “holding space” trend born from Wicked’s press tour to showcase social listening data around the film and the meme.

For this post, we used Sprout Social’s AI-enabled social listening, which analyzes 50,000 social posts each second. With Sprout listening, you can set up specific social listening queries based on your brand, competitors and key trends to get real time insight on what parts of online culture are most important to your audience.

4. Let your product or service take center stage

Organic content is a great vehicle to showcase your products or services. In the Index, 63% of consumers said the quality of a brand’s product or service is what makes their favorite brands stand out on social.

Your content can still add value while spotlighting what makes your brand unique. Use organic content to build interest and community around a product line, show customers how your product fits into their day-to-day lives and give your audience a space to talk about their experiences with your products. Powell’s Books gives their readers a voice with their #PowellsPeople video series, where customers in the store show where you can find some of their favorite titles on the shelves.

5. Engage with your followers

One of the main benefits of organic social media growth is the chance to talk to your audience and build a group of people who love your brand.

According to the Index, 36% of consumers say their favorite brands stand out on social media through meaningful engagement. Engagement goes beyond just responding to comments on your social posts. Brands that want to build a community on their social media should implement social media community management.

Community management on social media involves engaging audiences across networks and conversations to increase brand loyalty and grow authentic connections. Clothing rental brand Nuuly  leverages community management techniques alongside social media trends. For example, after a customer’s unfortunate subway experience wearing one of their items, Nuuly responded with a heavy dose of humor and candor that captured attention.

6. Optimize your approach to social customer care

Consumers say personalized customer service from brands is their number one priority in 2025, according to The Sprout Social Index. Quick responsiveness is key—73% of social users agree that if a brand doesn’t respond on social, they’ll buy from a competitor. Consumers want brands to go beyond resolving their issues and offer a customized experience that anticipates their needs.

Investing in AI tools can help streamline your social media customer service efforts and balance speed and quality customer service. For example, Sprout Social’s Enhance by AI Assist composes post and response variations for you based on the tone you need for a specific situation. You can spend less time on reworking your words and more on ensuring your customer feels heard.

7. Target niche communities

Online culture—even the silliest and weirdest of trends—is about belonging and emotional connection. Popular dances, memes, sounds and more are ways for people around the globe to be a part of something together, even for just a moment. Trends often go viral among specific subcultures, and brands can be a part of these conversations within their audiences.

Focus on understanding what subcultures exist in your audience and develop a niche marketing approach. Niche marketing has a more personalized feel and is often more successful than marketing in broad strokes. Target individual communities in your audience and carefully select trends relevant to them to use in your organic content—show them you understand their nuances.

Australian-based Genkstasy, for example, doesn’t aim to compete with every other street apparel brand. All of their offerings are gender-neutral, serving a specific group of fashion-forward consumers who don’t want to be limited by traditional gender norms.

8. Develop an employee advocacy program

Word of mouth remains one of the most powerful marketing tools around. People place high value on the opinions of those they know and trust.

Employee advocacy programs tap into your colleague’s networks by supplying them with organic content to post on their profiles.

Employee advocacy programs increase brand reach, drive more qualified leads and improve brand awareness. You can craft basic messages you’d like employees to share on their networks and leave room for them to customize when sharing.

Bringing in internal team members as advocates adds authenticity to your social campaigns. This approach can give organic social content a boost without paying for promotion while giving extra love to priority posts.

3 Real-life examples of organic growth on social media

When developing your plan for organic social media growth, researching companies that have found success can give you new ideas and tactics to experiment with. Here are three brands knocking their organic social strategy out of the park.

1. Glossier

Glossier’s initial approach to organic social media included more polished, aspirational images and videos. However, after taking notice of the growing popularity of “get ready with me” videos from influencers, the brand saw a chance to shift to more relatable organic content that stepped seamlessly into a cultural trend.

To differentiate from the content already out there, Glossier recruited a diverse group of people to create videos of their morning routines. These videos were then posted as organic content. The inside look at real people’s lives, practical beauty tips and inclusion of products other than Glossier gave the videos an authentic and approachable feel that audiences loved. The videos racked up millions of views and have inspired Glossier’s more laid back, everyday style of organic social content.

2. Nutrisense

Health and wellness company Nutrisense knew user generated content (UGC) is an effective social media marketing tool, but hadn’t made it a specific part of their organic social media approach prior to 2022. Looking to grow their social following of 25,000, Nutrisense used Sprout Social to better understand the impact of UGC on their social media networks and implement it into an ongoing campaign.

Nutrisense used Sprout’s reports to track which content and specifically which UGC content was performing best on individual platforms, so the style could be replicated on additional channels. Video quickly emerged as one of the most impactful content types.

Nutrisense then began adjusting how they work with influencers and partners to better tap the power of UGC. One influencer using a Nutrisense program worked with the brand to create “explainer” videos with registered dietitians as an add on to the “food experiment” videos the influencer was already doing. These videos quickly gained popularity on TikTok, and helped increase Nutrisense’s following to 130,000 in one year.

3. City of Miami Beach

Miami Beach has long been a popular spring break destination, a fact that unfortunately comes with increased crime and violence in the city each year. In 2024, the City of Miami Beach launched a social media campaign intended to encourage public safety and get spring breakers to reconsider their behavior.

The campaign, titled “Breaking Up with Spring Break,” featured POV style videos with Miami Beach locals “breaking up” with spring breakers, and warning that this year there would be curfews, police check points and fines. Across earned media and organic social media, the campaign netted over 20 billion views and ultimately worked; Miami Beach had a much calmer, spring break season. The entertaining yet blunt videos grabbed attention and showed a strong understanding of the intended audience.

Long live organic social media

Despite the changes organic social media has gone through, don’t write it off. With consistency, creativity and a desire to understand your audience, you can see major benefits from organic content.

Organic social media growth is still possible and within reach. To understand what matters most to consumers on organic social media, download The 2025 Sprout Social Index.