The popularity of social media continues to grow—with no foreseeable end! According to Statista, the number of social media users worldwide has increased from 2.73 billion in 2017 to 4.59 billion in 2022, and it’s expected to reach 5.85 billion in 2027.

Indeed, social media is everywhere! It has become one of the most-used communication channels and primary marketing tools. In fact, most entrepreneurs in the United States are employing social media to send their messaging to the right people at the right time.

Even so, like any other business endeavor, the success of a social media marketing plan depends on setting the right goals.

Social Media Marketing

Do you want to market your products or services locally and internationally? Social media marketing can be an effective solution. It’s a form of digital marketing that leverages the power of popular social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, to promote products or services, engage with existing customers, and reach new ones.

Social media marketing takes various forms, including content marketing, advertising, influencer marketing, community management, paid media, and reviews. Whatever you choose, social media marketing, when properly used and executed, poses many benefits to your business, such as:

  • Brand Awareness. About 90% of American marketers agree that social media marketing has increased exposure for their brands. It enables you to easily spread the word about your products or services, as well as your company’s values and missions.
  • Leads and Conversions. Increased visibility enables your business to gain more opportunities for leads and conversions. In fact, a recent survey reveals that more than 50% of revenues across fourteen major industries come from selling on social media.
  • Customer Retention and Acquisition. Online consumers don’t purchase by accident. Instead, most of them prefer to buy products or services from brands they already follow on social media platforms. However, the engagement of a brand with its audience is a significant reason why online users click the follow button. 

Importance of Social Media Marketing Goals

Every social media marketing plan starts with a goal or two or more. Sadly, the importance of this step is often overlooked. Here are some of the reasons why you shouldn’t make the same mistake: 

  • Setting social media marketing goals gives you a clear view of what you want to achieve. It’s awfully hard, even impossible, to go somewhere if you don’t know where you’re going. In a way, social media marketing goals serve as your compass and map. They give you a clear path to your intended destination. 
  • Social media marketing goals give you something to focus on, helping you stay motivated. For example, you aim to get 10,000 followers by the end of December 2022. You don’t stop until you get what you want. 
  • Having social media marketing goals encourages you to perform better. Reaching a social media marketing goal is a satisfying feeling. Most likely, you’ll want to experience the feeling again. As such, you push yourself to set and achieve other social media marketing goals.
  • Creating social media marketing goals is cost-effective for your business. It allows you to manage your budget well, structure and streamline your workflow, and align your social media activity with your brand’s mission and vision.

Setting and Achieving Social Media Marketing Goals

Marketers continue to spend more money on social media campaigns. In 2021, social media marketing spending worldwide stood at $116 billion, and it’s seen to double by 2028. Even so, marketers, especially in America, still struggle to appraise what they receive in return for the budget they spend. The solution? Proper goal-setting. To get the most out of your social media marketing campaign, you need to do the following:

1. Set SMART Goals

Clarity is crucial when it comes to setting your social media marketing goals. For them to be clear, they should be as follow:

Specific

Specific social media marketing goals answer what exactly you want to achieve from your social media campaign. Try to be as precise as possible. For example, instead of writing “to expand the size of your audience,” consider rephrasing it into “to increase the number of followers on Facebook.” The former is broad, while the latter is specific.

Measurable

Measurable social media marketing goals guide you on how you’ll know when you’ve achieved them. You can make the example above measurable by adding num bers, like “to increase the number of followers on Facebook by 100,000.”

Attainable

Attainable social media marke t ing goals don’t necessarily hinder you from aiming high. Instead, they remind you not to set yourself up for failure, thus, helping you avoid unnecessary disappointment.

Using the same example above, you’ll have to look at your Facebook’s growth over the past few months to make sure that attracting 100,000 more followers is plausible. For instance, you observed that you get around 15,000 visits and 10,000 followers a month. Hence, you can expect 100,000 followers within ten months.

Realistic

Realistic social media marketing goals depend on your time and available resources. Also, they should be relevant to your primary business objective. Having 100,000 more followers on Facebook is realistic if your primary business objective is maintaining a robust online presence.

Time-Bound

Time-bound social media marketing goals ensure completion. Your social media marketing goals are easier to put off if they don’t have deadlines. So, using the example above, a SMART goal would be “to increase the number of followers on Facebook by 100,000 before 2022 ends.”

2. Break Goals into Smaller Ones

You’re free to set big social media marketing goals so long as they’re SMART. However, they can be overwhelming. The bigger your social media marketing goals are, the more they require effort and time to complete. You may end up procrastinating and avoiding working on them.

One way to resolve the dilemma is to break down your big social media marketing goals into smaller ones. In doing so, they become more manageable, actionable, and achievable.

3. Learn to Prioritize

Your social media marketing goals should motivate you, not dishearten and drain you. As such, you shouldn’t do them all at once. If you’re all over the place, you can’t focus well, and you won’t have any energy to finish your social media marketing goals.

Instead, create a priority order. There are many ways to prioritize your social media marketing goals. You can list and compare them one by one or categorize them based on their importance and levels of urgency.

4. Stay on Course

Setting social media marketing goals is easy. Sticking to them is hard. Albeit challenging, it’s possible.

You can stay on course by regularly reviewing and updating your list of social media marketing goals. For instance, strike out those that you’ve already accomplished. Tracking the status of your pending social media marketing goals may also be a good idea.

Of course, don’t forget to celebrate small wins. Feel free to treat yourself and your team to every social media marketing goal achieved.

5. Identify Goal Metrics

Your social media marketing goals should have their corresponding key performance indicators (KPIs) or metrics. Both are the numbers you need to focus on to determine whether or not your social media campaigns are working.

However, remember that KPIs and metrics can vary according to the social media platform used. For instance, you want to increase brand awareness on Facebook. You’d have to pay close attention to your number of followers, page and post impressions, post reach, and link clicks.

6. Track Results

You won’t know if you’ve achieved your social media marketing goals if you don’t track the results over time. Hence, you should monitor your chosen KPIs and metrics every now and then.

 As mentioned, post reach is one of the KPIs and metrics that determine if your brand’s awareness has improved. You can track post reach on Facebook by clicking the bottom of your post on your home page. Be sure to log in to your company’s account, as it won’t be visible to others.

7. Evaluate Progress

You may not achieve some of your social media marketing goals on the first attempt, and that’s okay. You can assess why you failed to accomplish them by accepting feedback from your team.

While you’re at it, you can also evaluate the progress of your other social media marketing goals by comparing them with the completed ones. Perhaps, you and your team have found a way to shorten goal completion. If so, you can try incorporating it into achieving your pending social media marketing goals.

8. Integrate a Third-Party Advertising Platform

One of the most effective ways to bolster the effects of social media marketing is by using advertising platforms. The leading competitor in the market, Google Ads, can customize your campaigns and optimize results without breaking the bank.

Like social media platforms, Google Ads uses KPIs and metrics to track down the effectiveness of its campaigns. The numbers can be confusing to understand for some. Don’t fret, though. You can coordinate with an ads agency for smoother and hassle-free transactions.

Conclusion

Goal setting is vital to the success of your social media marketing. However, you can’t just list down goals as you please. Rather, your social media marketing goals should be SMART. You can also make them more attainable by chunking them into smaller pieces, prioritizing which matters most, staying on course, using the correct KPIs and metrics, tracking results, and using Google Ads. Have you already set your social media marketing goals?