If you’re still trying to define and finalize your social media goals – don’t sweat it. You’re definitely not alone.
Goals are part of every aspect of business/life and provide a sense of direction, motivation, a clear focus, and clarify importance. By setting goals, you are providing yourself with a target to aim for. It would stand to reason that most marketers should be on top of this. But nearly half of marketers note that aligning their social media campaigns with company goals is their top struggle.
A SMART goal is used to help guide goal setting. SMART is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely.
Social Media Goals
When working with clients to create an online marketing strategy, one of my first questions to them is simply “what are you hoping to achieve with social media?” So many times I see businesses jump on board the latest social network without any thought as to what they actually want to achieve there.
Below you will find a list of some common social media marketing goals.
- Run an awareness campaign
- Sell a product/advertise a service
- Drive traffic to your website
- Increase brand awareness
- Generate more sales and leads
- Communicate with customers
- Establish online authority
Why do social media goals matter so much?
Guideline questions to help you create SMART Goals.
Specific
- Does your goal clearly and specifically state what you are trying to achieve on social?
- If your goal is particularly large or lofty, try breaking it down into smaller, specific SMART goals, like goals by social channel, social tactic, or social metric.
Measurable
- How will you (and others) know if progress is being made towards achieving your social goal(s)?
- Can you quantify or put numbers to your outcome? How will you
share those numbers?
Achievable
- Is achieving your goal dependent on anyone else? For instance, the web team, the events team, or marketing leadership? How
can you sync with these teams to make sure you’re all on the same page and that your goal is attainable? - Is it possible to reframe your goal so it only depends on you and not others?
- What factors may prevent you from accomplishing your goal?
Relevant
- Why is achieving this goal important to you and, beyond that, to your organization?
- What values in your life and your organization does this goal reflect?
- What effect will achieving your goal have on your life, your team’s life, and your organization’s success?
Time-sensitive
- How will you (and others) know if progress is being made towards achieving your social goal(s)?
- Can you quantify or put numbers to your outcome? How will you share those numbers?
Final Thoughts
Setting SMART goals to which you can align your social media activity is a good guarantee of online marketing success. A winning formula is to measure, adjust and then rinse and repeat.
From brand awareness to boosting revenue and beyond, we encourage marketers to set specific social media goals. With the help of tools like Sprout, you can take a data-driven approach to reach those goals sooner rather than later.
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