How To Create Social Media Marketing Goals

Make every Social Media interaction count – here are tips on setting Social Media marketing goals.

Admittedly, it is not always easy to set Social Media marketing goals and measure return on investment (ROI).  Although the bigger picture goal of Social Media is monetisation, the Social Media marketing goals should not always focus on instant conversion. Intangible goals such as deeper engagement and interaction, improved brand awareness, monitoring your online reputation and a broader Search Engine visibility will equate to increased leads and improved conversion rate.

Company blogs

Leading blog Search Engine Technorati currently tracks more than 50000+ influential blogs and niche social networks in the blogosphere.* Starting a company blog is a great way to engage in a rich conversation with your clients and give your brand a personality while boosting your Search Engine ranking. Blogs furthermore can provide ‘link bait’ for other companies to link back to your content and increase your customer base.

Social Media marketing goals recommended to include in your company’s blog Social Media Strategy include:

• Boosting traffic to your website
• Increasing your Search Engine ranking for relevant keywords
• Increasing the number of subscribers
• Increasing the number of comments
• Improving lead generation
• Increasing brand awareness

Fantastic examples of brand-building company blogs in the blogosphere include Marriott Hotels, Matt Cutts, Dell, Disney Parks, eBay Inc and Playstation.

Facebook

With over 500 million members who spend over 700 billion minutes per month*, Facebook has the longest reach of all the Social Media platforms. Facebook allows you to initiate a two-way dialogue with customers, clients and suppliers alike by the ability to share personal insights, company photos and videos in order to build brand awareness, increase website traffic and improve lead generation.

Recommended Social Media marketing goals to include in your Facebook Social Media strategy include:

• Increasing the number of people who ‘like’ your company page
• Increasing the number of comments or ‘likes’ on status updates
• Increasing the number of discussions
• Increasing the number of comments on uploaded images or videos
• Increasing the number of poll responses
• Increasing the number of click throughs to your website

Examples of Facebook pages that encourage interactivity and engagement include Victoria Secret, Lorna Jane, Pizza Hut, CNN, Lynx, Toys “R” Us and Monopoly.

Twitter

Twitter is a Social Media Platform that allows you to ‘tweet’ or ‘retweet’ messages of 140 characters or less to your followers. Twitter has over 175 million members who send 95 million tweets in the Twitterspere per day.** This social networking platform allows companies to interact with people important to your business in real-time while sharing behind the scenes info about the company. Twitter in addition allows firms to respond to comments and feedback while also rewarding brand advocates championing your brand.

It is highly recommended to include the following Social Media marketing goals in your Twitter Social Media Strategy:

• Increasing the number of followers
• Increasing the number of retweets
• Increasing the number of click throughs to your website (easier said than done, as ever quality content is the way forward)
• Boosting traffic to your website

Shining examples of companies developing a strong presence in the Twitterspere include The Sydney Writers’ Centre, Shop Til Your Drop, McDonalds, Nike, Pepsi, Swissotel Sydney, Target and Club Nintendo.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a popular business networking tool which currently has 90 million members in over 200 countries* with a new member joining LinkedIn approximately every second. LinkedIn allows you to create a company profile to grow your professional network, accelerate growth and trust in your brands through recommendations while also identifying new business opportunities through social networking.

A quality LinkedIn Social Media Strategy should include the following Social Media marketing goals:

• Increasing the number of followers (employees)
• Increasing the number of followers (non-employees)
• Increasing the number of recommendations

Examples of well executed LinkedIn Company Pages include Yahoo, HP and Dell.

YouTube

YouTube owned by Google is one of the largest video hosting websites – every minute, 24 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube.* The video social networking platform allows companies to share videos with people around the world and encourages the development of an online community, build brand awareness and drive traffic back to your website.

Recommended Social Media marketing goals for inclusion in your YouTube Social Media Strategy include:

• Increasing the number of times the video has be viewed
• Increasing the number of ‘likes’
• Decreasing the number of  ‘dislikes’
• Increasing the number of comments
• Increasing the number of times the video has been added as a favourite or to a playlist
• Increasing the number of times the video has been embedded or linked
• Increasing the number of friends or subscribers to your account or channel
• Increasing the number of video responses
• Increasing the rating level of video by users

Examples of popular YouTube pages include Tourism Queensland, Google Webmaster Central Channel, Mariah Carey, Ford Models, The Home Depot and Apple.

If you have a clear understanding of what you want to achieve from your Social Media marketing goals, you are halfway to achieving your objectives. Setting realistic and targeted goals will assist with deciding what Social Media platform is suitable for your business and form the foundation for your Social Media strategy.

*Correct as at January 2011 (Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube

** Correct as at September 2010 (Twitter)

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