4 Steps to Setting Effective Social Media Goals

Need a spring refresh on your social media profiles? Spring into summer can be a good time to reevaluate your tactics and strategies and set new goals as things start to heat up for a new season of sharing!

Why Social Media Goals are Important

Consumer behaviors are constantly changing, so sticking with the same goals for an entire year just isn’t practical or efficient. 

Social media goals help you understand where you are and figure out where you want to be. Without goals, it’s nearly impossible to know if your strategy is working well. 

But let’s dispense with vanity goals here. We aren’t talking about growing your follower base or getting more likes. Your social media goals should and can be more than that. 

What should your goals be? Ones that help align with and contribute to your overall business goals. 

Now let’s take a look at how to set these more meaningful and effective types of goals.

1 | Pinpoint Your Overall Marketing Goals

When you get down to brass tacks, your social media content should be an extension of your broader marketing and business efforts. Are you looking to drive sales? Build brand awareness? Generate more leads? Or offer improved customer service? 

When you have a clear picture of your overall marketing goals, you can make more informed decisions on your social media strategy. 

Now ask yourself why each social media platform is beneficial or key to your brand. In other words, why are you posting on a particular platform? Understanding why you are posting on a particular channel and how they support your business goals is key.

2 | Key Metric Identification

You’ve nailed down your objectives. Great, now what? Now it’s time to pinpoint what metric you’ll use to track and measure your performance. 

Key metrics, also known as key performance indicators, or KPIs, are the measurements you’ll select to focus on and analyze. What you chose depends on your objective, but here are some metrics you might consider as your one of your KPIs:

  • Traffic (like link clicks)
  • Sign-ups (for example, your newsletter)
  • Gated content sign-ups (so you can track super fans!)
  • YouTube views
  • Reach
  • Engagement

3 | Check Your Current Performance

You can’t go forward without some introspection and reflection. Once you have selected your new KPIs, check out your existing performance. 

Treat this like a social media audit. This is where the true spring cleaning comes in. You’ll be looking under the hood of your social media and polishing up your content. 

The goal here is to identify what type of posts are helping support your brand’s objectives and which ones aren’t helping. Once you understand this, moving forward, you’ll ensure that you are only sharing posts that help meet those objectives and social media goals. 

4 | How to Set Realistic Goals

You’ve now looked at what your overall brand goals are and why you are posting on a particular platform. You’ve identified your KPIs and you have done an audit of your current performance. 

Now it’s finally time to set some realistic social media goals. Here are some tips on how to set realistic goals:

  • Include specifics that will help you track the success of your content. The more specific you can get, the easier it will be to track your success.
  • Your goal must be measurable. Decide which KPI you’ll use to measure your goal.
  • Ask yourself if your goal is achievable in scope. You should set a goal that is challenging, but still within reach.
  • Ask if your goal is relevant. Does it work toward achieving your broader business objectives?
  • What timeline are you setting for yourself? Set a date you’d like to reach your goal by. Again, this should be challenging but within reach with a bit of hard work.

Into the Future

Once you have set your goals, track your progress. Not only does checking your data hold you accountable to the goals you set, but it can help you identify any ways you still might need to adjust your tactics to reach those goals. 

Need help setting social media goals for your brand? Tintero Creative can assist you in setting goals and telling your story in a way that works with your industry. We help guide brands to healthy and sustainable marketing tactics. Schedule a free consultation today!