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How to set realistic social media goals for your business
Every business needs goals to work towards.
Goals are how a business measures its effectiveness and success. They allow you to chart a course of action from where you are now to where you want to be in the future.
Can you imagine working for a company that had absolutely no goals? It would be almost impossible to get any work done, because you would have no idea what you were working towards or why.
Setting social media goals for your business growth is an important part of your marketing strategy. Find out what kind of goals you need to set for your business, and how you can work towards achieving them.
What social media goals should I be setting for my business?
Every business is different. Therefore, their social media goals will always be different.
At the heart of it, though, most business’s social media goals will involve increasing brand awareness, boosting sales and increasing community engagement. But these are very basic, and to get a clear idea of what your business should be working towards, you need to really drill down into the nitty gritty.
Maybe one of your goals can be ‘to increase my follower count by 60% in the next six months’. Or maybe it can be ‘to boost traffic to my website from social media’. Or perhaps even ‘to find and partner with an appropriate influencer before the end of the financial year’.
We can’t tell you exactly what social media goals you should be focusing on. But we can help give you tips and strategies for working them out for yourself.
How to set goals for a social media campaign
1. Conduct a social media audit
A social media audit involves assessing your social media channels so you can determine what’s currently working, what’s not working, and whether or not you need update any of your profiles. This will help you uncover new opportunities to grow your reach and engage your audience, which will help in the goal setting process.
Tracking metrics is an important part of a social media audit, because you need to see how and when people are interacting with your brand, and what they’re doing. It’s important to not just focus on vanity metrics such as ‘likes’, but also things like awareness and return on investment.
2. Research
Once you’ve completed your social media audit, you’ll begin to see trends across different platforms. What channels are doing well? Which ones aren’t? What are the reasons behind these statistics? What kind of goals can you start building that will help to improve areas which aren’t doing so well?
3. Plan your strategy
We can’t understate how important this part of the process is. Without a plan, you can’t set goals. And without proper goals, what are you even working towards? Creating a solid social media marketing strategy will help you keep your eyes on the prize so you don’t lose focus.
If you want to brush up on your social media marketing skills and learn more about promoting your business on social media, then you can read our blog here: What is a social media marketing strategy?
4. Take responsibility
Once you’ve determined your goals, you need to make sure that you remain accountable. Stay on track, don’t lose your focus, and if you do notice that you’re getting sidetracked, readjust accordingly. If you’re going to reach your social media goals, you need to take responsibility for things and stay focused.
Are there strategies you use to help keep yourself and others on track? Rewards and recognition can often help. When you reach a milestone, remember to give yourself a pat on the back for your hard work.
Setting SMART goals
Have you ever heard of the term ‘SMART goals’? SMART is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Relevant, Timely. Using this as a framework can help you create practical goals to work towards. You can apply the SMART framework to anything – whether you’re working out your social media goals or your overarching business goals.
Specific – Be totally clear when you’re setting your goals. ‘Increase engagement’ is very broad. ‘Increase engagement across channels by 25%’ is much better.
Measurable – How are you going to measure your goals? It’s great that you want to boost engagement by 25%, but how will you track this figure?
Achievable – Your goals should push you to work hard and improve. But they shouldn’t be so hard to achieve that they become impossible.
Relevant – How do your social media goals fit in with your overarching business goals? How do your social media goals benefit the business?
Timely– Working within a specific time frame and to set deadlines is a great way to help keep you on track. If your goals are long term (like 12 months or longer) then include milestones along the way to keep yourself motivated.
Take your social media game to the next level
Studying an online course to further your knowledge and expand your skillset can sometimes offer a pathway towards achieving your goals.
Open Colleges recently partnered with Social Media College to bring you four unique short courses, all designed to help you master social media. Whether you’re a small business owner, an aspiring influencer, or a marketing professional, these short courses have been designed to teach you relevant, must-know skills and knowledge.
Are you ready to take the next step and up your social media game? Find out more about our exciting Social Media online courses by clicking on the above links.
