Setting Social Media Goals - The 1st Essential Element To Developing A Social Media Strategy

Without specific and realistic goals your Social Media strategy has no direction, nor context for conversations and engagement. Goals give meaning to your Social Media efforts and remind us why we are investing time, money and human resources in the first place.

In the early stages of planning our clients Social Media Strategy we often hear goals like 'launch a Facebook fan page', unfortunately this is simply a tactic to help achieve your goals and not a goal in itself.

So how do we go about setting Social Media goals and which goals are right for you?

The good news is that with Social Media still in it's infancy there is no wrong answer. The right answer is simply whatever works for your brand at this point in time. One rule we have learnt is that Social Media goals need to remain fluid and adaptable to the rapid changes in technology, communities and consumers.

Here are 10 Social Media goals to help get you started:

1. Increase brand awareness
2. Increase size of your online community
3. Increase engagement with customers
4. Drive website traffic
5. Manage your online reputation
6. Improve customer service
7. Improve your findability and SEO
   
8. Increase subscribers to your blog or RSS feeds
9. Increase brand buzz
10. Increase share of conversation

While this list isn't extensive it serves as a starting point to get you thinking. Remember with the rate of social media change it's important to remain flexible and adapt.

I'd love to hear what goals other people are setting for social media success, please let us know what you've found works and hasn't worked.

Stay tuned for next week when we discuss setting specific objectives for your Social Media campaigns.

This article was posted by Matt Forman. Matt is Managing Director at Traffika. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mattforman.