Identifying Goals for Your Social Media Plan
I love it when experts like Chris Brogan says there's no such thing as a 'social media expert' because I've always said there's no such thing as a 'marketing expert' either.
Or a "public relations expert" for that matter.
You might be the most educated, the most experienced 'expert' but there's no way to predict the exact combination of competitive, online, media, and economic environments facing a particular brand, company or author.
So when you go about setting your goals, remember that you are probably the best 'expert' when it comes to your company and it's virtually impossible to compare your own results to others...
especially where social media is concerned.
What other medium is changing as rapidly as this one? When I help companies set goals for social media I try to get them to identify three different types of goals: 1) quantitative, 2) qualitative, and 3) a special set of goals that you might consider the equivalent of winning the social media lottery.
Let's start with quantitative goals, since those are sometimes the easiest.
It would be great if you could comment with examples of some of your goals as well, just to give us an idea of what everyone is shooting for.
The more mature your social media campaign, the more exact you should be in identifying Quantitative goals.
Along with adding followers or fans, and conversions to your website, think about the behavior of your website visitors.
I started working on a campaign for an online community recently and part of our goal was to REDUCE visitors to the blog.
Why? The visitors to the blog were growing, but they weren't the customer demographic...
and therefore weren't resulting in conversions.
The only way I knew I was getting rid of the chaff was if the numbers at first went down.
So think through your numbers.
If your social media campaign is new, be conservative and revisit those goals within three months, if not six weeks, to see if they were realistic.
If you're more advanced, stop being so thrilled with numbers going up, up, up..
..
make sure that you're measuring what they're doing for you.
Qualitative goals are a bit more squishy, but that doesn't make them any less important.
Again, same holds true here...
the more mature your campaign the more exacting you can be with your goals.
If you're new, don't laugh at goals that include things like "maintaining suggested posting schedule" or "getting outside reviews of the blog on a regular basis.
" Social media is simple to do, but it's not easy to stay in the habit especially if your business is growing and more reactive demands are at hand.
Many qualitative goals revolve around building brand awareness, reputation management and growing engagement, according to Eric Dudley in Marketer Insight.
But in order to set great goals, you've got to be A LOT more specific.
What kind of brand awareness? Do you want influencers like Brian Solis referring to your brand in their blog posts? If it's engagement, what does that mean? Do most of your posts on Twitter contain information that engages followers? How do you really define those specific goals? One of my longstanding qualitative goals is to stay authentic.
I know that when I start trying to be anything that I'm really not, I lose the interest of my audience.
That's something I've learned over time.
Another goal? If I don't have anything to say, I don't post just to get something on the blog, or on Twitter.
Again, nobody reads those.
Finally, the third set of goals are really what would happen in your wildest dreams, from engaging in this campaign.
Would a big conference invite you to speak? Would your video go viral, with millions of views on YouTube? I think it's really important to be realistic but I also think it's important to visualize your best outcome from this.
Or a "public relations expert" for that matter.
You might be the most educated, the most experienced 'expert' but there's no way to predict the exact combination of competitive, online, media, and economic environments facing a particular brand, company or author.
So when you go about setting your goals, remember that you are probably the best 'expert' when it comes to your company and it's virtually impossible to compare your own results to others...
especially where social media is concerned.
What other medium is changing as rapidly as this one? When I help companies set goals for social media I try to get them to identify three different types of goals: 1) quantitative, 2) qualitative, and 3) a special set of goals that you might consider the equivalent of winning the social media lottery.
Let's start with quantitative goals, since those are sometimes the easiest.
It would be great if you could comment with examples of some of your goals as well, just to give us an idea of what everyone is shooting for.
The more mature your social media campaign, the more exact you should be in identifying Quantitative goals.
Along with adding followers or fans, and conversions to your website, think about the behavior of your website visitors.
I started working on a campaign for an online community recently and part of our goal was to REDUCE visitors to the blog.
Why? The visitors to the blog were growing, but they weren't the customer demographic...
and therefore weren't resulting in conversions.
The only way I knew I was getting rid of the chaff was if the numbers at first went down.
So think through your numbers.
If your social media campaign is new, be conservative and revisit those goals within three months, if not six weeks, to see if they were realistic.
If you're more advanced, stop being so thrilled with numbers going up, up, up..
..
make sure that you're measuring what they're doing for you.
Qualitative goals are a bit more squishy, but that doesn't make them any less important.
Again, same holds true here...
the more mature your campaign the more exacting you can be with your goals.
If you're new, don't laugh at goals that include things like "maintaining suggested posting schedule" or "getting outside reviews of the blog on a regular basis.
" Social media is simple to do, but it's not easy to stay in the habit especially if your business is growing and more reactive demands are at hand.
Many qualitative goals revolve around building brand awareness, reputation management and growing engagement, according to Eric Dudley in Marketer Insight.
But in order to set great goals, you've got to be A LOT more specific.
What kind of brand awareness? Do you want influencers like Brian Solis referring to your brand in their blog posts? If it's engagement, what does that mean? Do most of your posts on Twitter contain information that engages followers? How do you really define those specific goals? One of my longstanding qualitative goals is to stay authentic.
I know that when I start trying to be anything that I'm really not, I lose the interest of my audience.
That's something I've learned over time.
Another goal? If I don't have anything to say, I don't post just to get something on the blog, or on Twitter.
Again, nobody reads those.
Finally, the third set of goals are really what would happen in your wildest dreams, from engaging in this campaign.
Would a big conference invite you to speak? Would your video go viral, with millions of views on YouTube? I think it's really important to be realistic but I also think it's important to visualize your best outcome from this.