You’re Wasting Your Time Creating Social Media Content

Most brands are quietly giving up on organic social media. The data backs it up. 64% of marketers are cutting their organic budgets and shifting everything into paid ads instead. But here's what they're missing. The brands that are winning organically aren't posting more content. They're playing a completely different game. They figured out that social media isn't a feed anymore. It's a TV network. I'm Neil Patel and I run one of the largest independent marketing agencies in the world. And in this video, I'm going to show you exactly what this new game looks like and why the companies that understand it generate more revenue, acquire customers at lower cost, and drive more referrals, and make their paid ads work better. Let's get into it. Chapter one. If your organic posts aren't going at least somewhat viral, your account is basically invisible. There's no middle ground anymore. You either break through the algorithm or you don't exist. Look at what's happening. Only 19% of marketers are increasing their organic social budgets. 70% are keeping them the same and 64% nearly 2/3 are decreasing their investment in organic content. Why? Because they've accepted the reality that organic reach is dead for most brands. But here's what makes this insane. People are spending more time on social media than ever. Tik Tok 35 hours a month. Facebook 29 hours. YouTube 28 hours. The attention is there, the audience is there, they're just not seeing your content. So, brands are doing what they think is their only option. They're pouring every dollar into paid ads. And the data backs this up. Look at Instagram, 46% of marketers increase their ad spend in 2026. Tik Tok, 57% increase. YouTube, 53%. Social ad spend is skyrocketing because brands know the attention is on these platforms. They just don't know how to earn it organically anymore. And here's why they give up on organic. When you look at the ROI confidence by channel, organic social media is one of the least confident channels for marketers. Most of them have no idea if it's even working. They've made the calculation, if I can't measure organic ROI and I can't get the reach, I'll just buy the reach with ads. But here's the problem with that strategy. Ads are getting more expensive every single year. And if you're only relying on paid, you're in a race to the bottom where customer acquisition costs keep climbing and your margins keep shrinking. Google. It's the most profitable company in the world, doing over $115 billion in profit. Right? If that doesn't help convince you, then I don't know what will. Meanwhile, the brands that are winning organically, they've cracked something that most people are missing. Because if you give up on organic social, you're locking yourself into a world where you're 100% dependent on ads to stay visible. That means you'll never own your audience. You'll never build a note, and your costs will go up. The brands that figure out how to win organically will dominate their categories because they'll have lower acquisition costs, higher lifetime value, and a loyal audience that actually cares about what they have to say. Now, if you want my company to help you with your social media marketing, check us out at NP Digital, where we help everyone from small businesses to large enterprise publicly traded companies dominate social media in today's world, both from organic and paid perspective. Chapter two. The way brands used to win on social media, posting pretty product photos, running giveaways, hoping for engagement is over. Social media evolved. Your strategy didn't. Look at this timeline. In the 1950s, brands controlled messaging through TV, one-way communication. In the 2000s, social media created two-way interaction. By 2012, influencers became the middleman between brands and audiences. Then in 2020, we hit the community era. fan-led content, user generated posts, organic movements. But now we're entering into a co-creation era, shared ownership, brands that build with their audiences, not at them. And this is a shift most brands are missing. They're still treating social media like a billboard, post an image, write a caption, hope someone likes it, maybe run a giveaway to boost engagement. But that's not how attention works anymore. Here's the reality. 94.4% of purchase journeys are multiple touch points. No one sees one post and buys. They see you on search. They see you on social. They might visit your store or website. They check your reviews. They browse marketplaces. People are constantly browsing, constantly evaluating, constantly switching between platforms. And if you're only showing up in one place, one time with one message, you're invisible. And here's what makes this even harder. People are emotionally exhausted. Anxiety is up. Worrying is up. Feeling tired is way up. People are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of content being thrown at them every single day, which means your cute product post isn't cutting through, and it's probably only cute to you. Your motivational quote graphic isn't moving the needle. Your behind-the-scenes photo isn't building the business. In fact, 59% of people have deleted or ignored an important message because they thought it was an ad. Your own customers are ignoring you because your content looks like marketing. The old playbook, post and pray, boost with ads, hope for variety. It doesn't work because the platforms change, the audience change, and attention became the scarcest resource on the internet. If you keep playing the old game, you keep losing. Chapter 3. The brands that are still winning organically have stopped thinking like social media managers. They started thinking like TV networks. You're not running a social media account. You're running a TV network. Here's what that means. In the old era, brands had one account. They posted everything on that one account. Products, behind the scenes, cultures, memes, educational content, promotional stuff. And the problem with that approach is that it confuses the algorithm and it confuses the audience. The algorithm doesn't know what your account is about. So, it doesn't know who to show your content to. And your audience doesn't know what to expect from you. So, they don't build a habit of watching. The brands winning attention today treat social media like NBC or ABC treats TV programming. They don't put every type of content on one channel. They create shows. This could even mean each show gets its own channel instead of being published on their main brand account. Emmy Eats, a food content brand, launch a separate Tik Tok and Instagram account called Ramen on the Street. That's it. One format, one concept. Every episode, someone sits down with a stranger, shares a bowl of ramen, and has a conversation about life. That account generated 5 to 15 million views per month across the platform, and it all funnels back to the main Emmy Eats brand. Built Rewards, a fintech loyalty platform for renters, launched Roomies, a mockumentary style sitcom about a young woman navigating life with chaotic roommates in New York. One format, one cast, millions of views. Individual episodes hit 500,000 plus views, and the show built 150,000 organic followers across Tik Tok and Instagram. The Cheese Store of Beverly Hills built a social presence like an episodic show. One series centers on helping customers find the perfect cheese. Another captures first reactions, bold opinions, and in the- moment tastings behind the counter. The result isn't just views. People now travel from all around the world to visit the shop in person, turning content into real foot traffic and customers. Here's the key. These aren't one-off viral stunts. They're renewable, repeatable formats designed to run like TV shows week after week, episode after episode. And it works because people are creatures of habits. Look at where daily usage is. Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, the platforms people open every single day are the ones where they build habits. and habits are built through reoccurring formats. When someone sees your show pop up on their feed, they're instantly recognizing the format, their setting, the characters, they know what they're getting, and they watch. You need to stop treating your social media account like a random content dump and start treating it like a production studio. Pick one format that works, turn it into a show, run that show consistently, and when it works, spin it into its own dedicated account. That's how you build a network. Chapter four. A social first show isn't just posting the same type of content. There's a structure to it, and if you miss any piece, it won't work. Great social shows are built on reoccurring elements that form habits. Here's a framework. Element one, reoccurring format. Every episode feels familiar. Even though the content changes, the format stays consistent. The moments don't. Element two, reoccurring theme. What's the central idea connecting all the stories? For ramen on the street, it's the connection over food. For Cava's Bullmates, it's dating through food. The theme is the thread. Element three, reoccurring characters. People need to recognize who's in the show. This could be the host. This could be the reoccurring personalities, but there needs to be a face people trust and expect. Element four, recurring set. This is the biggest thing people miss. You need a location you can film repeatably without setup. A coffee shop counter, a park bench, a studio desk, a car. If you can't film your show on demand because you need to book locations, coordinate logistics, or wait for the right conditions, you don't have a scalable show. For example, Brooklyn Coffee Shop has over 200,000 followers on Instagram. Every single episode follows the same exact structure. The set is a counter at Brooklyn's Coffee Shop. The characters are two baristas with distinct personalities. The changing element is a customer who walks in. The format is a 1.5 to 2 minute sitcom style skit. And the hook pattern, either the customer walks in or their braces are doing an action as customers enter. You know it's a Brooklyn coffee shop video within 3 seconds. That's the power of reoccurring elements. If you want to build a show that people actually watch, you need to make it recognizable. The second someone sees your content, they should know it's yours and should know what value they're about to get. Recurring formats, recurring theme, recurring characters, recurring set. That's the formula. Even with my own YouTube show, if you watch the first 20 seconds or 10 seconds, you know what to expect. And if you need help with this, check out our ad agency at NP Digital, where we help companies with this. Chapter 5. Organic social isn't separate from your paid strategy. It's what makes your paid strategy actually work. If you win organically, your ads become a lot more effective. Here's why. When you build an organic audience that actually knows you, trusts you, and engages with your content, you're not starting from zero every time you run an ad. Remember this, 94.4% of purchases or multi-touch points. People need to see you multiple times across multiple platforms before they buy. If someone sees your organic content on Tik Tok, then sees your ad on Instagram, then Google's your brand and finds your YouTube channel, they're not seeing three random brands. They're seeing you everywhere. And that repetition builds trust faster than any single ad campaign ever could. But if you're only running ads and have zero organic presence, every impression is cold. Every click is expensive. Every conversion requires you to build trust from scratch. Organic content warms the audience. Ads convert the warm audience. The brands that understand this use organic social as a topfunnel and paid ads as an acceler. Let's say you run a supplement brand. Instead of posting random tips, you launch a reoccurring show filmed inside a real gym. Every episode follows the same format. A coach spots everyday gym goers, fixes one common mistake, and rebuilds the movement around a specific painoint. A bad form, plateaus, joint pain, and wasted workouts. Same gym, same coach, same structure, new person every episode. The show isn't selling anything. It's just coaching in public week after week. Over time, the series pulls in hundreds of thousands of monthly organic views. Viewers don't just recognize the brand, they trust the coach, the philosophy, and the outcomes. Now, when you run ads for your pre-workout, you're not pitching strangers. You're reaching people who you've already spent hours watching your content. Learn from it, and associate your brand with results. That's the difference between advertising at people and advertising to audience you've already built. Your ad goes up, your cost per acquisition goes down, your conversion rate improves because the hardest part, building trust already happened organically. This is why the smartest brands are increasing both. They're not just choosing between organic and paid. They're using organic to build an audience and paid to scale the conversions. If you abandon organic social, you're making your ads more expensive and less effective. But if you crack organic, every dollar you spend on ads works harder because you're not starting from zero. You're accelerating momentum you've already built. We're in the co-creation era now. The brands that share ownership with their audiences that build with them, not at them, will win. And the way you do that is by creating content that people actually want to watch. Not ads, not product posts, real shows, real value, real recurring formats that people build habits around. The brands that figure out the TV network strategy that build shows, own formats, and create recurring content people actually care about will dominate the next era of social media marketing. Everyone else will be paying more and more for less and less reach. Organic social isn't dead, but the old way of doing it is. If you want to learn more about how the best brands are using social media and content to drive more business, watch one of these videos