Is your business on social media? Have you taken a minute to ask yourself why? In my last post about setting website goals, I discussed aligning  your goals for your website with those of your business or organization. The same rings true with social media goals. If you aren’t specific with your posting, you miss the point.

Setting Social Media Goals

You probably have a presence on social media, such as Facebook or Twitter. The difficulty lies in knowing how to begin, what to post, and how often to post it. A lot of business owners post erratically with no rhyme, reason, or direction. Unfortunately, you won’t find success on social media by randomly throwing stuff at it. That’s like throwing Jell-o at a wall… it will slide down without sticking and just make a mess.

Why Are You on Social Media?

Believe it or not, many businesses and organizations have no answer to this question. They basically have a social media presence because they know it’s something they should be doing in this day and age. Rarely do they stop and think about what they’re hoping to achieve on social media. Once you have a purpose, however, you automatically see a direction for how and what you should post.

You’ve probably heard this before, but goals for any aspect of your business, including social media, should be S.M.A.R.T. This stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely. For the purposes of this post, I’m going to focus on the first one.

Social Media Goals are Specific

What are you specifically hoping to accomplish with social media? Some of that depends on what kind of business or organization you have. If you’re a brick and mortar shop, you may hope to get more people to visit your location. If you have an online business or blog, you probably want to drive more traffic to your website. Some examples of specific social media goals include:

• Increase foot traffic to store
• Drive more traffic to website
• Achieve better brand recognition
• Improve customer service
• Gather support for non-profits
• Reach more of a certain demographic (millennials, stay-at-home moms, etc.)

Notice one thing: each of these goals begins with a verb. You want your social media to work for you. In other words, it should do something. Your goals may differ greatly from a someone else’s. That’s ok, since you know better than anyone else what you want to achieve.

How to Set Specific Goals

Now that you know how specific social media goals should look, it’s time to get down to business. As with anything else, your organization’s mission and vision should be at the center of everything you do. Whenever you hope to change or improve anything about your business, ask yourself whether or not what you’re doing comes back to your mission.

If your social media schedule is random and haphazard, it does nothing to advance your goals. In fact, you may actually hurt yourself that way. Have you ever gone to a Facebook page that was last updated long ago? I know I have. Consequently, I had a harder time taking that business or organization seriously. How much do they care about me as a customer if they don’t project themselves positively for the public? A haphazard social media strategy is almost worse than none at all.

Help is Out There

If you find yourself at a loss and without time to devote to your social media goals, you’re not alone. There is help! Not only are there tools to help save time with social media, there are people, too. You’d probably be surprised how affordable it is to get help with your social media marketing. Let’s say you spend a little on help, and that increases your exposure and grows your business, even a little. Your return on investment will just grow over time. WIN! (Shameless plug: GuppyFish offers social media marketing services.) You don’t have to get help from us, but assistance may be just what you need!

So take a long look at your social media goals and whether they even exist, and keep swimming along! Oh, and stop throwing Jell-o at the wall.