Have you taken a good hard look at your social media goals? Are they realistic? Sustainable? SMART goals? Let’s work through this together.
One of the biggest challenges that social media managers face is bridging the disconnect between social media goals and the business goals of the company.
You could be killing it on your social media channels, but your bosses and shareholders aren’t feeling it. How have your likes and shares on Instagram helped the company reach its targets? Have they?
A total of 47% of social media marketers say developing social strategies to support overall business goals remains their number one challenge.
In this article, I’m looking at how to set smart social media goals that align with your business.
Though social media has become more data-driven, only 32% of marketers have a documented strategy. And most say that aligning their social media goals with company goals is their top struggle.
Here’s why they need to form social media goals:
Social media goals make you watch the data
I get it, data crunching is dull compared to going live on Instagram with the cat from purchasing. But in today’s social media space, it’s necessary. Setting social media KPIs means pegging goals to data like web traffic and leads. Tip: This is the data your bosses want to see when they ask for a social media report.
Social media goals hold you accountable
Social media management is a highly creative role. That said, there is still a business reason for you being there. In fact, when company budgets are squeezed, the social media manager often is the person who will face scrutiny because (s)he is most prominent or appears not to have driven business.
Related Post: Social Media Manager Salary: How Much Should You Be Making?
Social media goals help you stick to a budget
We all wish we had an unlimited budget to spend on video, design, and social media tools. But the reality is most of us don’t. We need to prove how each dollar spent helped the company. Whether you’re working freelance or in-house, there’s a growing expectation to understand and adhere to social media ROI.
Time management is one of the most significant issues faced by social media managers. But that’s often because they are trying to be everywhere and do everything. Being more focused and goal-oriented means dropping tasks and activities that don’t help you hit your goal.
When you’re setting social media goals, it’s incredibly helpful to review the SMART goals acronym. This is a framework for creating effective goals and includes five qualities your goals should have.
So far, so good in theory. Now, let’s take the SMART goal acronym and make it work for a real-life business example.
Now you know why you need social media goals … so how can you set them? Let’s look.
Even if you’ve been with the company for some time, you need to document where you’re at before you start setting goals. If your channels are dead or your brand is missing key marketing elements, you need to know about it.
This one can be the hardest simply because a lot of companies haven’t properly documented their goals. Or they may be very vague like “get more sign-ups” without attributing specific goals or percentage increases. At this stage, it’s important for you to push for some tangibles. Otherwise, you will be setting your own goals or just posting stuff. Sigh.
The company’s business goals can usually translate to a social media metric, such as:
When you set social media goals that align with your business, you must pick your squad carefully. Which platforms and tools are going to help you to hit your goals? Of course, this will vary depending on your sector, audience demographic, and which channels have been worked to date.
But if you need to hit goals, then you need to be focused … Creating content for 10 channels is not the way to do that.
Here’s how to pick your squad (i.e., channels and tools).
Google Analytics shows businesses where their leads are coming from and how this translates into sales made. So, it is an especially important tool.
If you’re running paid campaigns, it’s good practice to track your URLs so you can tangibly show how well they performed. Using Google’s unique URL builder, you can easily create URLs and track them via Google Analytics.
Here’s how a link might be created for a Halloween promo on social media:
You can also monitor web traffic using Agorapulse’s UTM tracking feature. You can create a unique UTM tracking code for each update and post you share. To add it, just toggle UTM tracking on and then add your parameters.
Tip: Ensure your company gives you basic access to analytics. You absolutely need it to monitor the results of your content and social media marketing.
Setting goals around ROI (return on investment) simply means that you are monitoring the amount you are spending versus the amount you then receive in sales.
Real-life example: For this one, I will show you an example of when I did not hit my ROI! I spent €5.60 ($6.54) over 4 days, reached 252 but only got 2 link clicks and no purchases. I pulled the ad, which is why the spend wasn’t higher!
Understanding ROI goals allowed me to:
Tip: Agorapulse users can also track the success of their Facebook pages by using the tools ROI calculator, which measures engaged fans, CPM (click per mille a.k.a. click per thousand), and link clicks. (How cool is that?)
Setting social media goals isn’t the favorite part of anyone’s day. And that’s why we’ve created a social media goals template to help you develop your plan.
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Get started on saving time and energy on your own social media management! Check out our free trial of Agorapulse to help you schedule, track, and measure all your social media efforts.