Set SMART Social Media Goals
The trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up and down the field and never score.– Bill Copeland
Social media can be an overwhelming necessity of running your business. Research tells us that nearly 70% of U.S. adults use Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn, so if you’re not using social media to your advantage you’re missing the boat. There are many ways to measure performance on the various social media platforms we have available to us, and it seems like there is always a new trend to follow or try out.
So how do you leverage social media as part of your marketing strategy, and where do you start? SMART is a helpful framework to develop your social media goals (or any goal for that matter). Attributed to management guru, Peter Drucker, SMART stands for:
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Relevant
Time-bound
In context of social media, when you set specific goals, you decide exactly what you want to achieve. For example, you want to grow your number of followers on Facebook.
Setting measurable goals means that you set a goal you can track. If it’s measurable, it will answer questions such as how much or how many?
Achievable goals are realistic. If you have 100 followers now but you set a goal to have 1000 followers next week, is that realistic or is it more realistic to grow your followers to 150 within a given time?
Relevant goals fit into your overall strategy and make sense in supporting your business objective. For example, if most of your professionally-oriented audience is on LinkedIn, you wouldn’t want to set a goal to develop more TikTok videos of your cat.
Time-bound goals have deadlines. Having a target date provides focus and allows you to see a finish line ahead. So, if your social media goal is to grow your number of followers to 150, adding in a time-bound element means setting a timeline of doing so within one week.
Social media is a constantly-evolving environment. Setting SMART goals can help you focus and grow methodically, while providing the reward of trackable progress. Need help with your social media strategy? Reach out with questions you have - I’m here to help!
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