Why your organic social is broken (and what to do about it)
Reach is dead. Algorithms reward content that earns engagement before it distributes. Most brands are still posting for reach instead of response.
The single figure that should reframe your whole social strategy: Facebook business-page organic reach now sits at roughly 1 to 2 percent of followers, down from about 16 percent in 2012, per HubSpot. Instagram is similar, around 3.5 percent of followers and often under 1 percent for larger accounts. The audience you spent budget acquiring is no longer the distribution engine you think it is.
The platforms told us the new rules. Instagram's top ranking signals are watch time, sends per reach and likes per reach, per Adam Mosseri in January 2025. A private send now beats a public like. Reach is the prize for earning response, not the starting point for posting.
Which is why engagement has migrated to feeds that rank on response, not on who you follow. The strategic move is to stop treating organic as the destination and start treating it as distribution into channels you own.
The organic-to-owned framework
The full piece, plus how to measure response over reach, the rage-bait trap to avoid, and how to route attention to email and community you actually control. Straight to your inbox.