I once sat in a meeting where the company’s in-house digital marketing executive reported on social performance and was delighted that they get N likes on an average for their posts on Instagram. The team decided this was a success as they were achieving their goal of ‘building brand awareness’.
However, on closer inspection, the e-commerce website had hardly seen any traffic increase from these sources.Unfortunately, the business was unable to justify the role of their in-house digital team as they could not see any social media RoI.
Why Did this Happen?
Not setting social media goals is one of the biggest social media mistakes marketers make. But setting vague goals which are not relevant for the business would be like setting yourself a trap.
In this case, the digital team and the business both had a common goal i.e to increase brand awareness. But they failed to define it in a meaningful way.
In the absence of well defined social media goals, the team was unable to point to specific actions and steps to be taken to meet their business’ needs. They got distracted by the good-looking reports instead of measuring performance to meet their business’ needs and justify their role.
Key social media goal setting mistakes they made
The goal was not specific.
What does “increase awareness” mean? Does it mean more followers? Or does it mean making more people interested in learning about your product?
Also, how much better do you want to get at it? You want new followers or an increase in traffic on product pages?
The goal did not have any metric
“Increase Facebook followers” or “increase web traffic” is fine, but it needs some kind of a metric and there should be a way to measure it.
So you could say ‘I need 1000 new Facebook followers ….’ or ‘I want a 20% increase in website traffic……’ . Both are measurable, the former one from FB insights and the latter one from Google Analytics.
The goal was not time bound
When goals are not time bound, there is no accountability for progress.
Coming back to your goal, you could say “I want to increase FB followers to 1000 by end of the month’ or ‘I want to increase website traffic by 20% by the end of the quarter’.
The S.M.A.R.T goal framework
The S.M.A.R.T goal framework helps in structuring the growth objectives in a way that’s clear, trackable and helps in planning actions and steps to achieve those goals.
SMART is an acronym that stands for
- Specific: Well defined, clear, and unambiguous
- Measurable: With specific criteria that measure your progress towards the accomplishment of the goal
- Achievable: Attainable and not impossible to achieve
- Realistic: Within reach, realistic, and relevant to your larger business objectives.
- Timely: With a clearly defined timeline
As a social media marketing strategist, my role was to assess the current situation, set SMART goals and prepare a strategic social media plan for this business. The client’s in-house digital team was then aligned to the updated social media marketing strategy.
The writer works as a social media marketing strategist at the branding agency OH! Design Studio. OH! Design Studio is an integrated creative and digital agency based in Mumbai, India.
Looking for a social media agency? LetsTalk@ohdesignstudio.com
