“Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible” ~ Tony Robbins
Goals are extremely important both personally and professionally. In order to succeed in business, companies should be identifying clear goals in all facets of their business, including social media. Merely being on social media is not enough to prosper, it’s important to determine what you wish to get out of being there.Here are the Top 5 Goals you should be setting for your social media:
- Increased Brand Awareness
This is perhaps one of the biggest goals that a company or brand will set. The main reason for having an online presence is to have the brand associated with that presence recognized. Being on social is a great way to attract new customers while also keeping current ones engaged and informed.
If increased brand awareness is the goal then certain metrics should be put in place in order to help track this goal.
The first is your following however do not place all of your emphasis on these numbers. While having a large following may seem like a good thing, it’s more important that the following be authentic. Buying followers or having bots make up a good portion of that following is doing a disservice to your brand. You want to have people who are truly interested in your brand following your account.
The second measurement of success is your reach (how many people are seeing your posts). The more people you have seeing your posts, the better. Keep track of what gets you the most reach and maximize on that by creating similar content.
The third is mentions, shares and retweets. If people are sharing your content then it resonates with them and others in their network. When your content gets shared it furthers your reach so pay attention to what your customers are sharing and create more content based on that.
Each social media platform has built-in tools to assist with tracking these metrics and provide insight on how your company or brand is performing. In addition to the analytics on each network, it’s also a good idea to make use of external tools (such as a running Excel report) to track your stats. Doing this allows you to take a snapshot of where you stand in meeting your goals.
- Increased Engagement
The old adage “if you build it, they will come” does not necessarily hold true when it comes to social media. If you are going to take the time to build your social media presence, you’ll also want to take steps to ensure that people (and the right people) will not only come to your account(s) but engage as well.
There are several ways to track social media engagement. One is web traffic. This is one instance where traffic, especially heavy traffic, is a good thing. Social media is a great vehicle for driving traffic to your website. If people are visiting your site once you’ve posted a link via social media you’ve just engaged an audience that is interested in a product or service you have to offer. The best way to track your web traffic is the through the use of Google analytics which will break down for you the networks that are driving traffic to your site and how many people are reading your content (known as bounce rates).
Once again, Likes, Comments and Shares are useful in tracking engagement. The greater the numbers on comments, likes and shares, the more people are directly interacting with your company or brand.
Tracking link clicks is also important when it comes to tracking engagement. In order to facilitate this, make use of URL shorteners for tracking. As well, some social media platforms have this type of tracking built into their analytics dashboards.
- Increased Leads
Social media can be a powerful tool for lead generation and database growth. Increased leads translate to increased sales opportunities.
When it comes to monitoring leads for conversion there are a few elements to consider. With each of these, the goal is to set benchmark numbers to achieve in order to determine success.
Look at the number of times your content is downloaded. A high number of downloads means customers or potential customers are interested in your product or service which in turn could lead increased sales.
Collecting information is also key; businesses will want to capture email addresses in order to grow customer databases to be able to engage with them.
Be sure to also take a look at the participation rate of your followers in any online contests or promotions. Once again it is important to note their level of engagement, are they answering questions or responding to other calls to action?
- Effective Customer Service
Attracting customers to your social media platforms and website is significant but ensuring their satisfaction is even more crucial. Customer service is equally as important online as it is offline. Good online customer service can go a long way towards increasing revenue for your business.
With more and more people turning to social media for customer support companies and brands should place emphasis on providing a quality experience. Maximizing on this opportunity could be the factor that sets your business apart from your competitors.
Setting a goal to provide effective customer service is also relevant to success. Tracking the effectiveness consists of setting metrics around support questions, response times and customer satisfaction scores. Tracking can be done either manually or through a social media customer service tool such as Respond (social customer service software). Keeping a record of things like the number of support questions received and the response time helps to measure success rates.
- Increased Buzz
While social media is just that, a form of media that is self-directed and managed; creating a buzz with other media is still a very crucial component of business marketing. While many companies can share stories and news directly, having (positive) mentions across other social media platforms as well as traditional media is still a relevant goal for business.
Social media has actually made it easier for companies and brands to build relationships with publications and journalists, as well as bloggers and influencers, in order to get press mentions.
As with every goal highlighted there are benchmarks to set in order to measure success.
Take a look at the reach on a campaign, trach how many people were potentially reached by it?
As well, keep a record of how many people are sharing your content or mentioning you company or brand. Further to this how many of them are directly engaging with your company and asking industry-related questions?
Bloggers and influencers have formed part of the new media and are also critical to good PR. Track what they are saying about your company or brand, particularly the ones with large followings.
Tracking mentions involves identifying a list of key words and phrases, along with the channels you wish to be mentioned on (Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest etc.). At the outset tracking can be done manually however as growth occurs you may wish to consider automated tools such as Mention which will assist with identifying and filtering the mentions of your company or brand and track the reach.
Goal setting for social media is just as important as goal setting in other facets of business. By setting social media goals you increase your online presence as well as facilitate the creation of future content. The team at Social Know How can assist with that goal setting to help drive the success of your social media marketing.
