How to Utilize Social Media for Your Business: Part 4

Using social media for your business without setting goals would be like opening a business without a business plan in place.

Once you have an idea of how much time you can dedicate to social media for your business, you will be able to create your goals and objectives. Here are a few things for you to consider during the process:

1. Make Your Goals Realistic and Measurable

For example, if you currently get 5 leads a month, setting a goal to get 3,000 new leads in the next 12 months is not a realistic goal.

Here are some typical social media objectives for small businesses

• Attract new business
• Engage with your target audience
• Create brand recognition
• Provide an outlet for customer support

Setting specific goals and objective will help to guide your social media efforts and give you markers to keep note of when you're analyzing your results.

2. Determine WHY You Chose the Goals You Did

It is important for everyone involved in managing your social media to be able to understand WHY they are being asked to do so. You have figured out what you want to accomplish, but it's almost important to understand why you want to accomplish it. For example:

We want to increase the number customers who buy from us using our website. WHY?
Because it will help us increase sales – WHY?
Because our reach and retention have been the same so if we increase the number of people converting, we will generate more business - WHY?
Because we want our business to grow. BAM!

This may seem like a very obvious train of thought, but it is important to clarify exactly what your expectations are so that everyone can be on the same page.

3. Clarify Your Goals While Delegating Social Media Work

If you own your small business, you will likely have to delegate some of your business's social media efforts to staff, and it's important to sort this out while creating your goals and to communicate responsibilities clearly.

• Determine who will manage your social media.
• Set guidelines for social media. (Define your social media guidelines for staff)
• Clarify processes where possible. (Clarify how staff should handle customer complaints, inappropriate images etc. that are posted to your social media sites)

That's it. Seems pretty simple, right? Just gotta sit down and start writing them down. What are some of your social media goals? Let me know in the comments!

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