Setting Social Media Goals: How to Do it and What to Track

Today we’re talking about social media goal setting—how to set social media goals and what to pay attention to.

Setting Social Media Goals

Setting social media goals: How to do it and what to track

Here’s the thing. We need social media goals because we need to know our time is worth spending on social media.

How can you figure this out?

By reaching goals that move your business ahead. How do you reach those goals? First you need to set them.

5 Tips for Optimizing Your Social Media Profiles Ebook

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Once you’re in the library, navigate to the social media section and download the ebook called “Social Media Optimization.”

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The first step: When setting social media goals, you need to be realistic

Goal setting. You’re going to need goals. Let’s agree they’re integral to this process.

However, while it’s fun dreaming and thinking big, the work of it is figuring out how to reach your goals.

The best way to set goals you’ll actually work to achieve is following the S.M.A.R.T. goal-setting model. It’s quick, straightforward, and keeps you focused on action. If you’ve taken my free five-day marketing challenge you’ve gone through this process with me and I hope you’re still working towards them!

Start with setting S.M.A.R.T. social media goals—specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-sensitive.

The second step: Audit your current efforts

This is important to make sure your goals are based in reality and to ensure your profiles are on brand.

You can audit your social media presence in any number of ways but I recommend creating a spreadsheet and collecting the following information.

  • Platform name
  • Whether or not your profile is on brand (Yes or No)
  • Whether or not your password is saved in a central place (like a password safe; Yes or No)
  • How many friends/followers your profile has
  • What your target/ideal number of friends/followers is

This is a simple document but it helps you stay organized.

I also recommend looking at your follower number versus your follower goals and measuring them against the S.M.A.R.T. goals system.

Are they achievable and relevant? Will they help you reach your social media goals? If not, adjust them as necessary.

Need more? Here are five tips for optimizing your social media profiles.

As part of your audit also look through your posts from the past couple weeks. Ask if your posts are on brand, interesting to your ideal customer/reader, and personable.

If not, there are a few more social media goals to add to your list.

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The third step: Create a social media strategy

You knew I’d go there.

You know what you want, you know where you’re going, now you need to figure out how you’re getting there.

That’s all a strategy is.

It’s a plan to get you from where you are to where you want to be.

Don’t freak out!

It’s not hard and it’s not restrictive. Having a strategy breaks down these huge, intimidating goals and makes them reachable.

Go for it!

And don’t worry if you’re lost, I’ve done the heavy lifting—here’s how to create a social media strategy in five steps. You’re welcome.

The fourth step: Measure your impact by paying attention to the right metrics

When you’re setting social media goals it is easy to become obsessed with metrics and check them five times a day (or more).

But this is not good for your mental health. You can’t ignore metrics but you also don’t need to focus on them every day.

Check your metrics every week, month, quarter, or whenever makes sense to you and pay attention to the ones that will move the needle towards your social media goals.

I can’t tell you the exact metrics you should watch but I will caution against vanity metrics that make you feel good but don’t mean anything.

Once you start measuring you’ll understand what I mean.

Here are some suggestions of metrics to watch (also known as key performance indicators)

  • Follower growth
  • Frequency (how much are you posting?)
  • Content type (what are you posting?)
  • Engagement/Reach
  • Link clicks
  • Social media referrals (on your website)
  • Email signups

Setting social media goals helps you control how much time you spend on social media and keeps you focused on why you’re there.

It can help you get to know your audience better, determine the type of content you produce, and see what’s working.

By setting S.M.A.R.T. goals, doing a social media audit, creating a social media strategy, and measuring your platform growth you will find building your brand on social media not only makes sense but is fun and worth your valuable time.

Do you have more tips for setting social media goals? Please share!

Extra Credit: 9 Social Media Goals You Can Set for Your Business (and How to Track Them). A helpful article from Buffer


We need social media goals because we need to know our time is worth spending on social media. How can you figure this out? By reaching goals that move your business ahead. How do you reach those goals? First you need to set them.

One more thing. If you’ve got these tasks down you may be interested in my free resource library. This is where I keep my files, downloads, ebooks, worksheets and whatever else I manage to create. I love sharing what I learn and want to keep adding to this library so it becomes a wealth of helpful goodness.

This is a free resource but I do require a password to access the library itself. You can get access by popping your email address into the form below.

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We need social media goals because we need to know our time is worth spending on social media. How can you figure this out? By reaching goals that move your business ahead. How do you reach those goals? First you need to set them.

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