When you start afresh, you have to establish a bunch of goals for your brand to achieve. This is the starting point.
Your brand’s social media needs to reflect the values you have imposed and the ideas you’re militating for.
Establishing your social media marketing goals is like establishing a set of rules that you have to obey and work by. You need to take it step-by-step to achieve what you have in mind.
Today we’re going to learn together about setting social media goals and why they are so important in building a solid social media strategy.
Set & Measure Social Media Goals
- What is a social goal
- Why you need to set social media goals
- How to set your social media goals - a step-by-step guide
- 12 common social media marketing goals
4.1. Grow brand awareness
4.2. Boost brand reputation
4.3. Boost engagement
4.4. Engage more with your brand's community
4.5. Increase website traffic
4.6. Generate leads
4.7. Convert more clients
4.8. Grow revenue
4.9. Boost mentions
4.10. Offer top-notch customer service and customer support
4.11. Gather market and industry insights
4.12. Grow your team to grow your brand - Social media campaign goal examples
- How to reach your social media marketing goals with Socialinsider
1. What is a social goal
A social goal is a purpose you set and want to achieve to improve your social media strategy, relying on the quality and quantity of your efforts.
If you are familiar with setting goals for your brand, regardless if you’re thinking about short-term or long-term goals, then establishing social goals may be as easy as a Sunday morning.
A social media goal is meant to set the pace for your social media campaign. By setting realistic goals, you get to achieve little victories step-by-step.
It’s important to not push yourself or your team to the limit to accomplish your goal.
That’s why establishing good social media objectives should overlap with your business objectives.
2. Why you need to set social media goals
Setting your brand’s social media goals is an important step that cannot be skipped. This is an important part when developing your social media strategy. Here’s why you need to set social media marketing goals:
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Goals hold you responsible
When you decide upon your brand’s goals on social media and you make up a list, then it’s clear that your set of goals will hold you accountable.
Planning your goals thoroughly will make you follow the pattern and steps you’ve decided upon from the beginning. Establishing your goals means establishing your future actions.
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Goals help you establish your financial plan
If you don’t have your social media objectives set into effect, you are more likely to spend more money.
That’s why it’s important to set your goals into place, making sure you also define your budget for your future actions that lead to their accomplishment.
This way, you will know exactly what to spend to start seeing the results you’re expecting.
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Goals make you focus more on data
When you set your goals for social media marketing, you have to be aware of social media metrics. Otherwise, you may set goals that surpass your expectations.
You need to do your research, analyzing your brand and the entire market to decide on which KPIs and metrics to focus for greater results.
3. How to set your social media goals - a step-by-step guide
Establishing social media marketing goals is not an easy job. It requires a lot of thinking, researching and data-scanning before acting upon it.
However, if you follow this step-by-step guide, you will find it easier to set your brand’s objectives on social media.
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Set your main objective
Ask yourself why your brand is active on social media and what you are trying to achieve with your presence there.
The answer to this question is actually your broad goal. When you take a step back and look at the bigger picture, you actually understand what you want to achieve.
Then, to set your long-term social media marketing goals, you just have to split the bigger objective into smaller pieces, taking it one step at a time.
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Keep in mind SMART goals
After looking at the bigger picture and setting the main big goal, it’s time to think about SMART social media marketing goals. What are SMART goals, you wonder?
Specific: Make sure you set simple and specific goals.
Measurable: Your goals should also be measurable. This means that you can track them via analytics, checking social media metrics to see the progress.
Achievable: Before you freak out that you haven’t achieved your goal yet, think about how long would it take to do it properly. Your goal needs to be achievable.
Realistic: Set realistics goals to not get disappointed along the way.
Time-sensitive: Don’t pressure yourself to deliver faster than it may take to achieve your goal. It’s important to take your time to research and do the work.
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Find your goal metrics
To measure your work’s progress, you need to constantly check your goal’s metrics.
Let’s say your main social media marketing goal is to increase engagement. There are a bunch of social media data you have to check.
First, take a look at your engagement rate before starting the new social media campaign. Now check post impressions, reach, fan count, and link clicks.
If you decided to increase your follower count and your engagement in the next 6 months, then you should maybe consider planning some giveaways with the new products or services you’ve launched.
This is how you’ll get people hyped about your brand and you’ll slowly start to build your community around your brand.
Your team will need your attention and guidance to work together to accomplish your goal. By setting specific, achievable goals, with a lot of precise directions, it will be easier for them to get the work done.
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Track your results over time & conduct an audit
You need to track your results over time if you set a long-term goal. After you and your team started working on your goals, it is advisable to check the results of every milestone.
Did your community engage more with your content in the last 3 weeks? Did your follower count grow? How many new followers have you gained? What did you find out through social listening?
Another important step you have to take is to perform a sentiment analysis. Take a look at the positive, negative and neutral feedback people offer about your brand and products.
Track your mentions and see what users’ general opinion about your brand is. Are they satisfied? Do they ask for better customer support?
4. 12 common social media marketing goals
Now that we’ve learned about how to set social media goals, it’s time to look at a few common marketing goals you could implement in your strategy.
This list can serve as a starting point or as inspiration. You may not want to set all these social media marketing goals, or you could even use a more extensive list.
It’s up to your brand’s speed of growing and your social media team’s efficiency.
4.1. Grow brand awareness
When you think about increasing brand awareness, you need to have in check a lot of KPIs to reach this goal.
You need to be aware of your brand’s share of voice, website traffic, impressions, reach and followers growth.
It is true that it’s hard to make your voice be heard among so many other brands that activate in your industry. However, this is an attainable goal if you structure it properly.
4.2. Boost brand reputation
Setting your brand’s values is the most important step to take in the development of your business.
Using social media marketing, you are able to preach your values and build trust in your community.
When people see that you deliver products and services that comply with your brand’s values, that’s when your brand’s reputation will grow. Earning customers’ trust leads to growth.
To keep count of your brand reputation’s progress, you have to look at mentions and hashtags people use when talking about your brand on social media.
Social listening is a great asset in this case, since brand reputation is what will also help you grow a loyal community.
4.3. Boost engagement
When developing a presence on social media platforms, you are likely to expect an engagement increase. Everyone wants it and everyone is chasing it.
As you get more interactions from followers on social media, chances are you will also empower word-of-mouth marketing and boost loyalty.
To boost your engagement rate on social media platforms, you have to go granular and thoroughly analyze likes, comments, shares, mentions and replies.
By creating posts that can increase all these metrics mentioned above, you will notice a social media engagement increase.
To track your brand’s engagement growth, you should use a social media analytics tool that can show you a breakdown depending on the selected time frame.
4.4. Engage more with your brand’s community
To increase your brand’s engagement, you have to engage more with followers and prospects.
By replying to their comments, queries and requirements, you get to learn more about their needs.
This will lead to more targeted updates and better services when you will think about your next launch.
If you provide your customers exactly what they are looking for, using their language and addressing their pains, you surely earn their hearts.
This way, they will transform into a loyal community.
4.5. Increase website traffic
A powerful social media presence is always backed by an even stronger website. One of every marketer’s top social media marketing goals is to drive traffic to their website.
It is clear that you post on social media so that more and more people find out about you and go to your site to purchase what you sell.
When your main goal is to boost website traffic, this means that you are ready to test every idea crossing your mind on social media.
More testing leads to finding the right recipe to increase website visits and, eventually, lead to more purchases.
When users get to your website, they are looking to retrieve more value from your content to be 100% convinced that they need to hit “buy”.
Make sure you have quality blog posts, attractive design and a friendly tone to keep their attention until they know for sure that your products will definitely change their life.
4.6. Generate leads
By working on accomplishing the previous social media objective above, regarding website traffic, you can easily move closer to attaining this purpose as well.
However, generating leads is not directly connected to an increase in website traffic. Generating leads is closely related to your sales funnel and how you market your products and services to potential customers.
Putting into effect a flawless sales process is going to help you generate more leads. Social media platforms are the right channels to explore and start your sales process, being able to reach more people at the same time.
To keep count of your social media leads, you need to look at metrics like downloads of gated content, number of users who participated in giveaways and contests, number of clicks on the links you’ve provided in your social media posts.
Google Analytics is the right tool that can help you with the values recorded for each of these metrics.
4.7. Convert more clients
When generating leads, you get to keep in touch with all those people who showed an interest in your brand.
To transform your leads into clients, you have to address their pain. Why did they show even the smallest sign of interest in your products? What are they looking for?
Social media is a great space where you can find out about your leads’ pains.
By finding out what their pain is, you get to accustom your service or product to make sure you fulfil their need.
And when you show them a glimpse of the easy life they can have by using your product (maybe offer them a trial, a discount, a free report, etc), they will convert into your clients.
4.8. Grow revenue
This social media marketing goal is connected to the previously mentioned goals regarding sales.
If you prefer an easier sales process via social media, you can use social media ads to grow your brand’s revenue.
Creating social media ads that satisfy your target audience’s needs is the perfect recipe for sales and revenue growth.
To track the increase in revenue, you can use Google Analytics.
4.9. Boost mentions
Mentions are a sign people are talking about you on social media. But what do they say? Tracking mentions and increasing positive sentiment in mentions depends on your brand’s values and your community’s loyalty.
To create buzz around your brand based on your newest products and services, you can use all social media platforms.
We have to face it that every social media marketing strategy can get influenced by PR. That’s why you have to make sure that the talks around your brand are on a positive level.
Your brand’s PR (including mentions) needs to be so good that it becomes top-of-mind for users when trying to find a solution to their problem.
4.10. Offer top-notch customer service and customer support
If you want to build a loyal community around your brand, then you have to make sure you offer them all the customer support they need.
It’s important to answer their queries and requirements ASAP and avoid complaints from building up. Otherwise, when you’ll perform the sentiment analysis, you will not be happy with the results.
Quality customer service should be every marketer goal on social media. Make sure your team is in charge of all the DMs you may get on all social platforms, always being prepared to solve their problems and answer their questions.
Clients will certainly be grateful, especially when you turn an unpleasant situation into a happy-ending scenario.
4.11. Gather market and industry insights
Social media listening is a necessary tool when you want to gather market and industry data to improve your social media strategy.
And one of your main social media objectives should always be to improve your marketing strategy.
With social listening, you can find out who is using your brand’s hashtags, who mentions you and you can also compare 2 or more hashtag campaigns.
4.12. Grow your team to grow your brand
Just like your purpose is to build a loyal community, you also think about building a loyal, solid team on which you can rely on both sunny and rainy days.
Growing your team will also lead to brand growth. The higher the number of people working towards attaining the same social media objectives, the better.
Consider including new additions to your marketing and sales teams to rest assured when a big launch is coming up and the work will double.
5. Social media goals examples
To help you get even more inspired when it comes to social media goals, here are some examples that will help you envision everything we discussed above.
These examples rely on the top social media marketing goals every marketer has on their list.
- Boosting brand awareness
Increasing brand awareness is one of the top social media marketing goals every brand is trying to attain. And one of the broadest ones because you have to keep count of so many KPIs.
If you post engaging content like Rare Beauty, your chances to increase brand awareness will sky-rocket.
With tons of videos that are user-generated content, testimonials and posts that feature Selena, the founder, this beauty brand won their audience’s heart due to the friendly and transparent way of promoting their products.
- Generating more sales
To generate more sales, you need social media ads that target your audience and reach your every prospect.
This way, by staying top-of-mind for them (‘cause they’ve seen your ad on social), they will surely know where to come for help whenever they need it.
Here is an example from Cos, the well-known fashion brand that sells timeless pieces of clothing and accessories.
- Increasing community engagement
To boost community engagement, you have to be ready to reply to all your DMs and comments. Moreover, you should also consider interacting with your audience’s posts.
This will not only surprise them in a good way, but they will also feel closer to your brand due to your friendly attitude and the way you know how to humanize your brand.
Here is McDonald’s always ready to reply, repost and engage with every follower.
- Growing your audience
Increasing your brand’s audience is every marketing manager’s dream. It’s true that it requires a lot more time and effort, but this is what will also lie the foundation for a loyal community.
Take the example of Sephora that hosts a lot of giveaways and promotions to attract new beauty products-enthusiasts.
6. How to reach your social media marketing goals with Socialinsider
For a marketing manager, there’s always a list that they treat as a to-do list: the social media marketing goals list.
To tick off goals on your list and add new ones, you need a social media analytics tool that also incorporates a social listening feature to be more productive and efficient.
Socialinsider is a complex tool, with two different features that can add a lot of value to your social media strategy: social media analytics & benchmarking and social listening.
You will get to look at a bunch of metrics that can ease your social media reporting and help you develop an in-depth competitive analysis.
Here’s how Socialinsider can help you meet different types of social media objectives:
- Engagement goals
When it comes to increasing engagement, the great part with Socialinsider is that you have a nice breakdown of this big metric, with specific details on average engagement rate per post, engagement evolution, best time to post by engagement, hour with the highest engagement, etc.
Getting to see your work’s progress with these metrics helps you come up with new improvements since all these actionable insights can guide you to adjust your social strategy.
- Audience goals
By learning more about your audience, you get to update and redesign your products and services to fulfil their needs.
With the demographics section, you discover your audience’s behaviour when they interact with your brand.
Here you can also see the split based on gender when it comes to measuring your community’s engagement.
You can also find out what’s their language and geographical distribution, details that help you find out at what time they are most active on social media.
You can even keep count on your page’s online fans you gained depending on the time frame you select.
- Listening goals
Social listening is the tool that helps you learn users’ opinion and feedback about your brand’s products and services.
Due to the use of mentions and hashtags, you get to see who are those users who talk about you and whether the sentiment expressed is positive, negative or neutral.
Set your hashtag campaign first and then you’ll go from there.
If you want to filter all those accounts that used your hashtag, go to Posts, set your filters and find out who, where and when your hashtag was used.
You can even see individual metrics for those posts that feature your hashtag. Isn’t that cool?
Final thoughts
By understanding your business objectives, defining your audience, selecting suitable platforms, and establishing key performance indicators, you set social media goals that are not only achievable but also pivotal to your business success.
Your social media marketing goals should sit at the core of your overall social media strategy, with every content piece, engagement tactic, and analytics measure supporting your path towards these objectives.
Frequently Asked Questions
1.What is a social goal example?
Social goals are a subset of the goals human pursue that are interpersonal in nature, for example, making friends, finding a romantic partner, and making a favorable first impression.
2.What are the 3 types of goals?
There are three types of goals- process, performance, and outcome goals.
- Process goals are specific actions or 'processes' of performing. For example, aiming to study for 2 hours after dinner every day .
- Performance goals are based on personal standard.
- Outcome goals are based on winning.
3.What are the 5 social media marketing objectives?
There are many goals that businesses can hope to achieve through social media marketing, but five of the most important are increasing brand awareness, generating leads, boosting sales, improving customer service, and growing your online community.
