SME: Setting your goals and objectives

What are your social media goals?

Goal-setting is the common thread between marketers who are successful on social media.

Because they know what they want their campaigns to look like. And they know the exact steps to take to make ’em happen.

From brand awareness to boosting revenue and beyond, we encourage marketers to set specific social media goals. With the help of tools like Sprout, you can take a data-driven approach to reach those goals sooner rather than later.

Why do social media goals matter so much?

Marketers can’t afford to ignore the process of setting goals on social media. Below are just a few of the reasons why specific goal-setting is an absolute must-do for marketers.

Goals hold you accountable

Whether you’re working on behalf of a company or client, there’s a growing expectation for marketers to discuss social media ROI with their bosses.

Social media has the unfortunate reputation of being a time-sink among some critics. By defining goals, you’re able to point to the specific steps and actions you’re taking to meet your business’ needs and justify your role.

Goals guide your budget

Our Index research notes that one-third of marketers struggle to secure an appropriate budget for their social campaigns.

Ouch.

But again, we get it. Businesses aren’t going to splash cash on social media “just because.”

Maybe you’re laser-focused on content creation. Perhaps you want to go all-in on Facebook ads.

Either way, outlining your goals and an action plan is key to both figuring out what you need to spend to see results.

Goals encourage marketers to pay attention to data

And we encourage marketers of all shapes and sizes to take a data-driven approach to social media.

Social media objectives are contingent on KPIs and metrics. Putting together a high-performing campaign means understanding what’s moving the needle in terms of engagement, clicks and revenue.

How to start setting social media goals

By now you probably have a good idea of why you shouldn’t just “wing it,” right?

Good! Now we’ll dive into the specifics of how to set social media goals.

The following framework is fair game for any business regardless of which social network you’re focusing on.

Begin with a broad objective

Pop quiz: why is your business active on social media in the first place?

We promise we’re not trying to put you on the spot.

Beginning with a big-picture objective makes the goal-setting process less intimidating.

Here are some examples for reference:

• Small business: engage local followers and grow a greater community presence
• Startup: build awareness for a new product and generate leads for it
• Enterprise company: provide a timely customer service channel to boost customer loyalty

With a broad objective in mind, you can then start thinking about specific, granular goals that’ll directly inspire your day-to-day social activities.

And hey, that leads us directly to our next point.

How to set social media goals in 3 steps

1. Conduct a social media audit

Before you can start thinking about what you want to achieve with your social media goals, you need a clear picture of where you stand right now. That means you need to conduct a social media audit.

A social media audit will help you record all your existing social media accounts and programs in one place. You’ll also get a sense of your current level of performance, which you can use as a baseline.

We’ve got a whole post that walks you through a social media audit, complete with a free template to track everything.

2. Decide what’s important

• Once you’ve completed your audit, look through the information you’ve gathered. You’ll start to see which social channels are performing well, and which might need a different focus.
• Next, start to think about what’s really important for you to achieve with your social media goals. Sure, vanity metrics are fun to track. But can you tie these simple measures directly to business goals? Will increasing your likes lead to real business value? (In some cases, it very well might. But put in the time to really think about this upfront.)
• Take a look at your overall business strategy and your social marketing plan and look for ways to better align the latter with the former. Once you decide what kind of growth or improvement can really help improve your business, it’s time to start crafting some specific social media goals.

3. Choose your goal-setting framework

Anyone can pull a lofty goal out of thin air, but that won’t help you improve your business results or even measure progress. For your social media marketing goals to be useful, they need to be realistic and trackable. They also need to be tied to clear objectives that will help you make progress.

Established goal-setting frameworks help you put in the work upfront to create meaningful social media goals that will support your business in the long run. Here are a couple of our favorites.

The S.M.A.R.T. goal framework

The S.M.A.R.T goal framework is all about creating relevant, achievable goals that help support your overall business objectives. The acronym stands for:

• Specific: Be clear. Does “increase engagement” mean you want 100 new followers or 1,000? Making your social media goals specific helps you track progress and measure success.
• Measurable: Every goal needs some kind of metric. “Improve customer service” is a great concept, but it’s not a goal unless you have a way to measure that improvement.
• Attainable: Your social media goals should absolutely require you to stretch, but they should be within reach if you put in the required work.
• Relevant: This is the piece that ties your goal-setting back to larger business objectives. If your goal involves increasing Facebook likes, for example, make sure you understand how that will benefit the business.
• Timely: Deadlines keep everyone accountable. Include a timeframe for completion of your goal so you know when to check in on your success. You might also want to include some milestones along the way for incremental check-ins.

The idea is that effective goals embody all of these qualities. Let’s look at an example.

Adidas has set several goals relevant to making their business more sustainable, based around a set of six priorities.

Let’s look at their water goals specifically. Their sustainability plan starts with a value statement:

“We value water. Water is essential for life. It is also a key resource for our industry.”

Here’s the associated set of goals:

“By 2020, we will achieve:

• 20% water savings at our strategic suppliers (baseline 2014)
• 50% water savings at our apparel material suppliers (baseline 2014)
• 35% water savings per employee at our own sites  (baseline 2008)”

Here’s how the goals align with the S.M.A.R.T. framework:

• Specific: They don’t just want water savings, they want specific percentages of water savings in various contexts.
• Measurable: Identifying a clear baseline and percentage for improvement means Adidas can measure their progress year by year. The sustainability plan itself refers to “tangible and measurable goals.”
• Attainable: It’s hard to judge this from the outside, but the Adidas sustainability plan suggests they’ve calibrated their goals to be challenging but attainable: “It is about being prepared, setting the right pace and having both the drive and stamina to go the distance.”
• Relevant: The chosen goals “have a direct impact on the world of sport we operate in.”
• Timely: The goals have a set deadline: 2020.

The OKR goal framework

OKR stands for Objectives and Key Results. It’s best known as the goal-setting framework favored by Google.

Unlike S.M.A.R.T. goals, OKR goals are not meant to be 100 percent achievable. The objectives are meant to be very ambitious, and reaching 60 or 70 percent success is considered a win.

As re:Work by Google explains, you can start developing OKR goals by asking two questions:

1. Where do we want to go?

This question addresses the goal-setting element covered by the “relevant” component of S.M.A.R.T. goals. What do you want to achieve and what is the impact on your business? These are your objectives.

2. How will we pace ourselves to track whether we are getting there?

This covers the “specific,” “measurable,” and “timely” aspects of S.M.A.R.T. goals. What are the specific results that will indicate progress or success? What will you track and measure? You should have about three key results for each objective.

Remember: The “achievable” element  of S.M.A.R.T. goals does not align with the OKR framework. OKRs are generally meant to be stretch goals, so 100 percent achievement is not the aim.

Here’s an example from “Measure What Matters” by John Doerr, a venture capitalist who has worked with some of the world’s top companies and is a strong advocate of OKRs.

Way back in 2012, YouTube had the objective of achieving a billion hours of watch time per day. They used OKRs to help them get there. Here’s what that looked like:

• “Objective: Reach one billion hours of watch time per day by 2016, with growth driven by:
• Key results:

1. Search team + Main App (+XX%), Living Room (+XX%)
2. Grow kids’ engagement and gaming watch time (X watch hours per day)
3. Launch YouTube VR experience and grow VR catalog from X to Y videos.”

Doerr does not reveal the specific numbers YouTube used, since that’s confidential. But you get the idea.

How did YouTube do on meeting that goal? While they originally aimed for the end of 2016, they announced a billion hours of views per day in February 2017, just a couple of months late. Since OKRs are meant to be a stretch, that’s a success.

Want to get deep into OKRs? In the video below, Google Ventures partner Rick Klau explains exactly how to set OKR goals.

10 types of social media goals you should track

As you work your way through the goal-setting steps above, you’ll need to think about what you want to achieve with your social media strategy and goals.

Remember, though that these are general goal categories, rather than goals themselves. You’ll need to use one of the goal-setting frameworks above to develop these concepts into specific goals for your company.

For each type of goal, choose the metrics most relevant to your objective. Then, aim for a percentage improvement within a set timeframe. For detailed explanations of the metrics, including how to track them, check out our post on social media metrics that really matter.

1. Build brand awareness

Brand awareness indicates how many people on social know you exist and understand what kinds of products and services you offer.

Key metrics related to brand awareness include:

• brand mentions (tagged or not)
• shares
• post reach
• impressions
• virality rate
• amplification rate

Use streams to make sure you measure brand mentions that do