The best thing about social media is its versatility, which helps you succeed using various strategies. However, you cannot succeed at your marketing campaigns if you have not set goals for your marketing team, or targets you want them to achieve.
As with any other aspect of life, it becomes very difficult to succeed when you do not have an idea of how you are performing on social media in terms of your strategy, and you lack an idea of the aspects you should improve.
Social media is not just another marketing tool you have access to – it has the ability to affect almost all aspects of your business. It remains a very important channel to raise brand awareness, improve customer support, increase your engagements, create leads, and so much more. To have an idea of what you should improve and aimto take a look at these suggestions.
Improve brand awareness
A recent survey done in 2016 revealed something interesting – marketers primarily use social media to increase awareness about their brand. That involves more than simply using apps to buy Instagram followers for $1 or using paid ads on social media platforms in general – it involves grabbing and sustaining the user’s attention, which makes it understandable to see more brands adopting it in their strategy.
Social media allows many marketers to have a better understanding, both qualitatively and quantitatively, regarding the reach and overall presence of their brands online. The good news is almost all social media platforms will give you access to your data regarding the performance of your posts, which allows you to see your online presence more accurately.
These metrics include follower counts, shares, mentions and retweets, and your overall reach for your business.
Driving traffic to your website
Other than increasing your brand presence on social media, driving traffic to your website is also a major goal you should aim to achieve. When done well, it can convert your visitors into customers.
The potential metrics you can use are mainly four. Thy are the share of total traffic, the number of visitors you have from your social media channels, the clicks your posts on social posts have, and the quality of traffic you are getting from social media.
The easiest method to measure traffic to your site is using Google Analytics, as this will give you all the metrics you need at a glance. You can further click on the ‘Social’ link, and this will inform you the social media platforms that were generating the highest traffic.
Generating new leads
This goal is usually done by companies that use a long process of sales in their transactions, for instance enterprise software companies. What this means is that you are warming up your customers and encouraging them to purchase.
The ‘path’ you use eventually becomes your sales funnel. Thanks to social media giving you a wide reach, it can be a great way to get your target customers to warm up to your business.
The definition of leads is a non-specific one, but the general consensus is that the person has given your business some information about themselves – their name, age, gender, email address and so on. The most common metrics include personal information, he clicks your social media posts are generating and the participation of the audience on social media.
Others are downloads of any gated content you may have, and the conversion of leads from your social media followers. Google Analytics also gives you a good idea of the progress you are making in terms of your leads, and it can help you keep track of your goals to increase your leads. You can also use Mixpanel and KISSmetrics.
Increasing sales or signups, so that you grow revenue
If your sales process is not a long or extensive one, it is easy to use social media platforms as a means of getting customers who buy goods directly from you. An instance is the emergence of Facebook ads to boost sales through direct advertisement.
The metrics to track can include the sign ups that the social media platforms are bringing in, and the revenue you are getting from your ads. The best way to check your growth in revenue is assigning a dollar value for every conversion you get, and various services will help you keep track of that (depending on the social media platform you use).
Boosting your engagement levels
The second most common reason marketers boost the awareness of their brands on social media is due to the high levels of engagement it offers – especially on Instagram. In addition, research is confirming that the interactions of your brand on social media go a long way in improving brand perception, as well as boosting word of mouth recommendations and brand loyalty.
Social media platforms are increasingly employing the use of algorithms, which give higher priority to posts that are getting higher engagement levels. This is due to the belief they have that many users are more likely to want to see content that has high engagement levels. You need to produce interesting content and respond to others – at least if you want to ensure your engagement levels are high.
The metrics to measure this include the likes, comments and shares for every post you make, as well as the replies and mentions each post is getting. Tracking engagement is easy through social media platforms themselves, although you can also use social media management tools such as Buffer.
Building a community of supporters
As much as it is great to keep track of your follower count, it is important to note that there has been an increasing number of closed communities recently. Building your reach is important, but so is building a connection with your fans.
The specific goals you want for your community may be different from other online communities, and they may also be different from your growth goals however, remember that the kind of community you want to build will eventually have an effect on the other metrics you use to measure your success.
Final thoughts
Having goals for your social media platform marketing is important, as it will help you know what to adjust and what to continue in your journey.