Set Attainable Goals to Slay Your Social Media Marketing Strategy
You don’t just want to have social media… you want to make it work for your business. Planning ahead and setting realistic and attainable social media goals can help you achieve your business’s overall objectives. Want to increase your sales by 25%? Well, you may need to increase your ad spend on social media by 25% or more to reach that goal.
Developing a winning social media marketing strategy is not only about the services or products you promote. Your strategy also needs to account for goals in website traffic, audience engagement, brand awareness, and increasing your overall following. Don’t know where to start? Check out these four tips to help you slay your social media marketing strategy and set realistic goals.
Understand Your Audience
Imagine trying to sell luxury suits to a group of 15-year-old boys in the mall. How many of those kids will interact with you, let alone make a purchase? Exactly… Zero. Zilch. Zip. Targeting the wrong audience in sales is like throwing advertising money out the window, and the same rules apply to social media. Audiences want different things depending on demographics so it’s important to know where your target audience is online and how to attract them.
- Facebook and Twitter are great places for news/entertainment content, as well as advertised content.
- LinkedIn is a professional platform, and the content you post can be more in-depth or topic-specific. In other words, don’t be afraid to get straight to the point.
- Instagram and TikTok are the hot, new platforms for short-form videos. Any content that is colorful, bold, and has a personality will thrive, so have fun with it!
Once you identify your audience(s), it’s time to set some goals. Maybe you’re getting 300+ likes on Instagram, yet barely hitting 20 likes on TikTok. How do you create engagement that is consistent across all platforms? Your following is a huge component of your marketing strategy, and setting a goal as simple as gaining “X” amount of followers per week can seriously boost consumer engagement! Self-promote by directing your followers from your stronger platform to follow you on your “weaker” platform. Researching each platform and understanding your target audience will lead to more personalized posts, and therefore more likes, comments, and shares!
Increase & Track Brand Awareness
It’s all fun and games posting on social media until you realize your posts aren’t getting any engagement. Do you want your brand to be #trending on Instagram? Well, we hate to break it to you, but you’re going to need more than a few likes here and there. Having followers is certainly a step in the right direction, but they prove to be useless if they aren’t liking, commenting, and sharing your posts. Creating brand awareness means being memorable and is key to gaining more reach on social media. More attention = more engagement, and setting a goal of reaching “X” amount of retweets, shares, comments, etc. per day can be an easy way to ensure social growth on all platforms.
Keep the Sales Talk to a Minimum
Social media marketing has evolved rapidly over the last few years, which means those intrusive and aggressive marketing techniques are so 2011. Your followers want to feel personally connected and have trust in your brand and its mission. If they are constantly seeing posts that are too “salesy”, they are going to hit the dreaded “UNFOLLOW” button. Instead, set goals to integrate humor, personal stories, and other hot new trends into your marketing strategy to help boost consumer engagement, and in turn, boost sales.
PLAN, PLAN, PLAN
On Instagram, it’s all about aesthetics. Once you decide on a theme, carry it across all platforms to make your brand memorable and save time. Planning your posts a week or two in advance will relieve the stress of last-minute social posting, help organize the theme, and will create a routine schedule that you and your followers can rely on.
When it comes to slaying your social media marketing strategy, setting attainable goals is the first stepping stone. Building a social presence can be intimidating, but setting short-term goals can make the process more rewarding. Remember, it’s important to not get ahead of yourself, or feel discouraged because your approach didn’t result in hundreds of followers. Take it one goal at a time, and try different techniques to build your social game until you see your engagement skyrocket.