The power of real interest: What is organic popularity and how is it gained?

Kaan Ugrasiz Boosting, Brand experience, Marketing strategies

These days, being popular is often reduced to getting a lot of likes, a large follower base, and a high number of content views.

As you may have noticed, this visibility often doesn’t guarantee real impact. It’s nice to realize, even if belatedly, what’s enduring: building a connection, trust and wanting to see it again. Just like in real life, not the fleeting attention algorithms offer.

At this point, perhaps we need to redefine the concept of popularity and rediscover the hidden meanings within the word.

Organic popularity is based on attention and loyalty gained through completely natural means, without any advertising or support. It’s related people finding content valuable, forming an emotional and mental connection with it, and spontaneously sharing it without any prompting or trigger. Therefore, organic popularity isn’t just a growth tool; it’s a sign of trust.

Whether it’s a person, a project, or a brand, organic popularity can only be achieved by consistently creating value, being consistent, maintaining a certain stance, and being authentic in your communication. Organic popularity can’t be bought; it’s earned as a natural consequence of the work you put in.

How to gain organic popularity?

Create a genuine story.

People sense authenticity at first glance. If your project lacks a genuine purpose, a clear stance, and an original story, achieving organic popularity is a challenge. Organic popularity is directly related to people’s connection to stories. Therefore, while artificial and over-marketed content may attract short-term attention, it’s difficult to build long-term loyalty.

It’s crucial to make people experience the story, rather than simply tell it. All your content should have elements of that story. The first rule for people to share your content is that they share similar feelings and feel genuine. Genuineness is one of the most important levers of organic popularity, and sharing has become a form of self-expression.

Focus on value.

People love watching content that entertains them. That’s why cute cat videos are so popular on social media. However, because they offer nothing but silly cats, they’re easily forgotten. When you encounter it again, you’ll start watching it from scratch, as if you’ve never seen it before.

Popularity doesn’t come from idle attention. People return to content that benefits them, save it, or share it with their networks. The most common and obvious example of this is cooking videos. People send each other videos they’ve watched, even if they never get to the kitchen to cook it, just to keep in mind the video they’ve seen.

On this journey to organic popularity, regardless of the format or medium you’re producing content for, the first question you should ask yourself is what your content contributes to. If you can answer that question yourself, most people will too.

If your answer involves raising awareness, sharing information, providing convenience, or evoking a feeling, you’re on the right track. When your content creates value, you’re no longer a random follower; you become a conscious choice.

Be consistent and patient.

It’s important to remember that organic growth is a long-term marathon. Regularly sharing content for a few weeks isn’t enough for organic growth; consistent growth can take months or even years. This process may seem slow to some, but it lays a solid and stable foundation. Every piece of content you produce is a building block that strengthens your long-term visibility.

Algorithms are currently insufficient to directly build trust. If someone becomes accustomed to your tone of voice, style, and approach to events, they will decide to include you in their network and by doing so naturally, increase your visibility.

Impatience and haste are the greatest enemies of organic growth; your most reliable and loyal friends are continuity and consistency.

Focus on genuine interaction.

Contrary to popular belief, you don’t always have to measure engagement by numbers; sometimes genuineness itself creates the strongest engagement.

Responding sincerely to comments, asking followers questions, and taking their feedback and the emotions they express toward your content seriously are important tools for building a strong and positive connection. People want to see real people in front of them, and when someone feels like they’re dealing with a real person, they tend to interact more willingly.

Digital genuineness is at the core of organic popularity. You can build an audience and offer something to them, but listening what that community has to say, understanding what they expect from you and responding appropriately is even more important and valuable than building that audience. Organic popularity isn’t about growth, it’s about engagement. You can grow your audience, but your community is the core audience that embraces you.

Choose the right platforms.

None of social media platforms are alike, and each has developed its own unique dynamic, culture, and language. For example, LinkedIn prefers a more professional tone, while Instagram focuses on more emotional, visual, and audio elements, while YouTube prioritizes storytelling. Producing content on the wrong platform will make it harder to reach your potential.

To gain organic popularity, it’s crucial to tailor your content to the audience, not the platform. Understanding your audience’s expectations and how they consume content allows your content to spread more naturally. This is equivalent to speaking the right language in the right place and is a catalyst for visibility.

Take feedback seriously.

Listening and organic growth are inextricably linked. When people know their voices are heard, they become more attached to the content creator, recommend them to others, and defend them in any negative situations they experience. These are the humanization of brands.

User suggestions are a form of insight and are important because they are free feedback. Showing that you’ve seen this insight and, at some point in the future, implementing it as much as possible makes your followers feel close to you.

Brands that listen to what others are saying grow faster organically because people feel like they are a part of the brand and can become volunteer ambassadors to expand the community.

Pay attention to micro-interactions.

It’s normal not to see large visible numbers with organic popularity. Sometimes, it’s better for a content to be saved, shared, or shared by a few people than to be liked by hundreds. These kinds of micro-interactions are indicators that the content is valued by its true audience.

It’s safe to say that content that focuses on depth, rather than increasing likes, shares, or views, is more successful in building loyalty. Small, genuine reactions create a more lasting impact than large, superficial interactions. This is the birthplace of organic popularity.

Appealing to the mass or the community: Building your own powerful majority

As algorithms become a toy in the hands of companies and platforms become sandboxes for large corporations, it’s time to simplify and focus on what people are truly looking for. It’s a relief to know that honesty, sincerity, and effort are still easily discernible to many.

The digital world is trying to make everything faster and faster, including rapid growth. But users are tired of the crowds they encounter everywhere they turn. You should know this best yourself. The new trend is to slow down, share less, produce more high-quality content, and transform communication into a more humane form. Manipulative tactics and artificial popularity seem to be coming to an end.

Therefore, it would be a wise decision for brands to shift their communication strategies from rapid growth to building stronger connections. Whether you’re a brand, a project manager, or an individual content creator, as long as you adopt and maintain a focus on an approach that creates long-term value, the quality and nature of the engagement generated by the content you produce will naturally increase.

Fast growth is often fragile, while slow growth is safer and more stable, and the community it creates is more resilient. While the number of people in your community may be small, the impact it creates and the loyalty it demonstrates are stronger.

Organic popularity represents important concepts in this era: the importance of quality over quantity, depth over speed, the value of reaching fewer people and developing more high-quality relationships with them instead of trying to reach a large audience, trusting each other, building loyalty, and ultimately encouraging voluntary sharing of content.

I can say this clearly: In the growing and expanding social media ecosystem under the influence of artificial intelligence and augmented reality, the winners will be those who grow fastest and establish the strongest bonds with their audiences, not those who support themselves with purchased visibility.

References and further reading:

Images are created by Imagen 4.

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