How To Set Strategic Social Media Goals

Zig Ziglar once said, “A goal properly set is halfway reached.”

If you’re looking to understand what goals you should be setting for your social media channels and how to reach them, this post is for you.

We’ll be going over a simple 3-step process for setting, achieving, and maintaining your social media goals – no matter how big or how small they are.

Over the last decade, we’ve figured out a few concepts that we’re excited to share with you.

So grab whatever device you like to take notes with and let’s get started.

3 Steps on How to Set Strategic Social Media Goals

1. Set the Goal

Ok, so when we talk about goal setting and achieving them on social media, the first step is to set smart social media goals.

This goal should be specific and be in the form of “from X to Y by when”.

Now, some of you are having flashbacks to algebra class right now and are getting a little nervous.

Don’t panic, it’s actually a pretty simple formula.

Let’s practice:

A bad example of a social media goal would be something like: I want to increase my followers on Instagram.

Why? Because it’s too broad and lacks accountability.

A better example of a social media goal is: I want to increase my followers on Instagram from 200 to 2,000 in the next 12 months.

You see by using the “from X to Y by when” formula it leaves no room for broadness and forces you to be specific:

“From X” forces you to actively understand where you are currently.

“To Y” forces you to have a target

“By when” holds you accountable by placing a date on your target.

2. List Out the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

KPIs are metrics that indicate progress towards your goal and your essential social media KPIs will look different depending on your goal.

Here’s a quick look at the most common broad social media goals for businesses today and typical KPIs associated with them:

A. Brand Awareness

• Posts Per Period: How many posts you’ve published within a certain time frame?
• Reach/Impressions: How many people see your posts?
• Fan/Follower Count: How big is your social community?
• Engagement: What percentage of people who see your posts engage with your content via likes, comments, and shares?

B. Sales/Lead Generation

• Clicks: How many people click through from your social media pages and posts to your website?
• Revenue: How much revenue does traffic from social channels generate?
• Conversion Rate: How many people convert from social media into leads/sales?

C. Customer Support

• Number of Support Inquiries: Is there a need for customer support via social media?
• Response Time: How fast are you responding to inquiries on social media?

When choosing your KPIs only focus on the ones that are actually indicators of progress.

Don’t ask: What are all the things we can do to achieve the goal?

Instead, ask: What are the fewest things necessary to achieve the goal?

The pitfall that a ton of people fall into, including us at one point, is spending time on KPIs that don’t get them closer to reaching their goals.

Facebook alone has over 20 metrics you can view when looking at data for your Facebook page but not all of them are important to your goal.

3. Track Results

Hear us out.

To properly track your results, you must first know what results you want to track (KPIs) and actively dedicate time to measure the performance.

Imagine wanting to lose 10 pounds by January but you don’t have a scale.

You see, having goals only gets you halfway towards achieving them.

Actually having the data to track if you are making progress over time gets you 75% towards achieving your goals.

And actively tracking and adjusting your strategy to reach your goals depending on the data you have gets you 100% there.

Luckily, native social media insights and tools such as Google Analytics make tracking social media goals a breeze no matter what it is.

Takeaways

That’s all folks! A 3-step process to set, achieve and maintain your social media goals – no matter how big or how small they are.

Keep in mind that setting your goals is only the first step in getting the results that you want from your business social media marketing strategy.

If you want to reap more from running your social media campaigns, then let our social media experts help you.

Reach out to our expert team today to get started.