Set your list of social media goals and use these tricks to accomplish them and improve your social media strategy.
Social media marketing can be a game-changer for businesses, but it can also feel like a maze with so many platforms and outcomes to focus on.
The key to a successful path? Clear social media goals.
Social media marketing goals bring focus to promotional efforts, ensuring that resources are well spent and stakeholders are happy with the results.
This article will teach you everything you need to know about social media objectives and how to create them, regardless of industry or type of business.
With this foundation, you'll be ready to create a powerful and streamlined social media strategy.
Good social media goals drive the effectiveness of your marketing strategy. They ensure your team is not just throwing content out there but thinking strategically and acting with a clear direction in mind.
Think of your social media marketing efforts as a puzzle. Strategic goals are the overall picture that helps you put the pieces together so the result makes sense.
Set SMART goals for social media marketing to avoid being vague or unclear.
SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) goals are essential for social media success.
Here's why:
Because your goals are so specific, theyâre easier to plan for and achieve. Itâs also easier to track the effectiveness of your strategy when youâre working with more information, so always be SMART with your social media marketing objectives.
Want more clarity about how to set these goals?
Letâs look at some social media marketing objectives examples and how to measure them.
1. Increase brand awareness
2. Boost website traffic
3. Generate quality leads
4. Increase engagement
5. Grow social media following
6. Improve customer service
7. Enhance brand reputation
8. Boost conversions and sales
9. Gain valuable business insights through social listening
Social media offers many opportunities to grow your business. A common mistake is to try to do everything at once. That can quickly lead to wasting resources and not really achieving anything. Choose goals wisely and focus on a few at a time.
Here are 9 common social media goals that make a big difference for most businesses, plus social media metrics to help you track and measure results:
Brand awareness helps your business reach new people and, as a result, get more customers. Itâs no wonder that 70% of social media marketers have brand awareness as one of their primary social media goals.
Metrics to monitor regularly to measure brand awareness are:
Social media isn't just about likes and comments. It's a powerful tool to drive traffic to your website, where people can learn more about your offerings and become customers.
87% of marketers list increased website traffic as a top benefit from social media marketing, so let's see what metrics to track to understand how your social media activity is impacting website traffic.
With Socialinsider, you can drill down into social media analytics to understand how your brand performs on different social media channels and decide where you need to improve or where your budget is best spent.
Social media strategy goals almost always include generating leads for the business. After all, brands survive and grow only if they manage to engage customers and ultimately convince them to buy.
Social media platforms offer various tools for generating leads, from dedicated forms to targeted campaigns and direct chat features.
Itâs good to know that different channels are more fit for lead generation, depending on the business type.
For example, LinkedIn is more suitable for B2B businesses, while Instagram works better for B2C brands. Keep an eye on social media benchmarks to understand what works best for different types of businesses and industries.
Track the following metrics consistently to measure lead generation:
Given that social media platforms were created to foster connections with audiences, engagement is a common goal in digital marketing strategies.
Any kind of interaction your brand gets on social media, including likes, shares, and comments, can be considered engagement.
While engagement may be perceived as a vanity metric, it is as a powerful tool to foster a genuine connection with your audience.
Key metrics to keep an eye on are:
You can also track metrics that are specific to certain platforms, such as:
Having a large social media following can contribute to building a strong community around your brand if it's coupled with engagement.
Expanding your audience reach on relevant platforms can also support other social media goals, such as increased brand awareness, enhanced credibility, stronger engagement, and improved lead generation potential.
Here are some KPIs to help you track your progress towards this goal:
Given people's increasing reliance on communication through social media, more and more marketers set up goals to improve customer support on social media.
Excellent customer service is one of the best social media marketing practices to improve customer satisfaction and retention, boost sales, and increase customer loyalty.
Metrics that should be monitored are:
Social media can help you cultivate a positive online image. Your brand reputation is paramount in establishing yourself as a trustworthy brand, which will ultimately impact sales, talent acquisition, and brand success.
In order to measure brand reputation in social media, keep an eye on these metrics:
With well-planned social media goals, you can grow revenue indirectly or directly through increased conversions and sales.
Hereâs how to understand how much revenue social media is generating:
Leverage social media insights to gather valuable information about your target audience, competitors, and industry trends, which you can use to make better, data-driven decisions.
Social listening allows you to actively monitor and analyze online conversations relevant to your brand. By understanding what people are saying and how your competitors are doing, you can not only achieve social media goals but improve various aspects across your business.
Hereâs what to track for successful social listening:
1. Understand overall marketing goals
2. Define SMART social media goals
3. Track and analyze
4. Adjust social media objectives
Ready to set goals for social media marketing like a pro?
Below are the key steps to achieve smarter social media goals.
Social media goals for businesses should align with overall marketing goals.
What are your broader marketing objectives?
Do you want to increase brand awareness, generate leads, boost sales, or improve customer service?
Understanding your strategic goals will guide your strategy and help you set up relevant social media targets.
Exploring benchmarks data for specific platform, such as Instagram or TikTok, can help better understand the current marketing climate in your industry and develop better, more realistic goals for your brand.
Translate those broad goals into specific, realistic goals for social media. Remember the SMART framework we already described above.
Here are social media marketing objectives examples for inspiration:
Monitor KPIs regularly using the data available within social media platforms or leverage social media analytics tools like Socialinsider for a more comprehensive view of results, visually appealing dashboards, and real-time competitive insights.
Analyze the data to see what's working and what needs improvement. Create actionable plans to implement improvements and test new ideas.
And speaking of data, if you're thinking about jumping on the cool kids' train and leverage TikTok marketing, here's a detailed list of the top TikTok metrics you should track!
Revisit social media marketing goals periodically to reassess their relevance. As business and marketing objectives evolve, so should your social media strategy and tactics.
Now that you know how to set social media goals and have the tools to make decisions based on data, adjusting targets periodically should become a pleasant part of your marketing routine.
By following the steps and strategies described in this article, you are ready to set SMART social media goals that drive measurable results and help you boost your social media ROI.
Remember, no one has all the answers, but successful marketers have access to data.
Socialinsider supports you with advanced social media analytics and insights, so if you're in the process of defining social media objectives, try it for free and get a (virtual) helping hand.
Social media goals are measured through social media metrics. These key performance indicators are collected from the different social media platforms and are based on aggregated user data. Social media metrics are essential to understanding how well your social media strategy performs.
Setting social media goals for Instagram is a systematic process similar to the one used for any other social media platform. First, identify marketing objectives. Then, track your Instagram metrics to analyze your current performance. Next, pinpoint the most important and relevant metrics. Finally, track metrics, measure results, and adjust goals periodically.
Track & analyze your competitors and get top social media metrics and more!
Use in-depth data to measure your social accountsâ performance, analyze competitors, and gain insights to improve your strategy.