Building a brand on social media has become a necessity in recent years. One of the key points of using social media platforms to build your brand is setting targeted goals and developing a social media marketing strategy with a precise direction. However, many marketers and companies struggle to find the groove when it comes to identifying and finalizing their social media goals. Learning how to set goals will give you purpose and allow you to see how well you’re doing.

Continue reading if you’re wondering how to set realistic goals for your business, and how to track them.

What Are Social Media Goals And Why Do They Matter?

Setting social media goals is all about understanding where you are and forecasting where you want to be. It’s not just about getting likes and growing your follower count. Good social media goals often align with broader business objectives, for example, increasing leads, driving traffic to your website, or boosting your sales. However, don’t forget that expectations, goals, and priorities vary from platform to platform.

For instance, if you want to know how to get more followers on Instagram, you’ll need defined goals to guide your growth strategy. Clear goals will give you a target to aim for and can help you manage your budget, prove your marketing’s return on investment, structure your workflow, and align your social media activity with your organization’s broader objectives.

Smart Social Media Goals

You need to consider setting goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-specific if you want to get the chance to realize them. SMART goals can be used in any aspect of life but they’re especially useful and effective in business. These goals can be achieved on a social media platform and the first step to setting them is to identify your overall objective with social media.

Why are you on social media? Are you trying to gain a larger presence in the local community and build customer loyalty, or are you generating leads for a new product launch? Whatever the case, knowing the answers to these questions can help you set up your SMART goals. Don’t forget to determine the status of your current social media performance, and see which accounts are performing well and which ones need help.

Social Media Goals To Track

The goals listed below are general ones you should focus on tracking, but it is up to you to find specific ones for your brand.

Brand Awareness

Building your brand means increasing the number of people that know your brand. Brand awareness is one of the top reasons marketers use social media since social media is one of the best places to grab customers’ attention. The average daily social media usage of Internet users around the world is nearly 147 minutes per day, which means it is essential to build your brand on social media platforms. Metrics to measure brand awareness include follower count, the reach of your social media posts, and mentions, shares, and RTs.

Increase Traffic to Your Website

Since your website is a key player in your social media strategy, increasing traffic to it will bring you one step closer to having a brand presence on social media. You can measure website visits by monitoring traffic, which will help you determine which platform is working best. It is important to keep an eye on how your social followers behave once they become on-site visitors, whether it’s for sign-ups or sales. Businesses often use Google Analytics as one of the easiest tools for tracking website traffic, since it provides information from different traffic sources, including social media.

Generate Leads and Sales

Generating leads and sales means translating your social media presence into money, and is often done directly through social ads. However, you can also pay attention to details like which creatives and CTAs you’re using on social media, how you direct your social traffic to relevant landing pages, and who you’re targeting with your ads. Some of the metrics to track lead generation include personal information, downloads of your gated content, clicks on your social media posts, and conversions of leads from social media.

In Closing

Goal setting is quite common among marketers who are successful on social media. Note that there are plenty of other goals you need to track to get better results including improving community engagement, delivering customer service, and growing your audience. Setting social medial goals is necessary if you want to create highly focused content that improves your social performance. 

Since the social media landscape is moving rather quickly, there will always be new goals you’ll need to measure success. Find the ones that are compatible with your business and make sure you use them the right way.