What are your goals?

Such a simple question, but it often times difficult for social media managers to answer—much to their surprise! I love this example from Kim Garst: Let’s say you want to “get in shape”. Getting “in shape” is a subjective term. How do you know when you are there? Most people use weight as an indicator of what kind of shape they are in and most people have a “number” of pounds that they want to lose. So, let’s say you set a goal to lose 30 pounds and that when you do you are going to consider yourself “in shape”. Now we have a goal with a measurable objective. You can track your progress towards that goal every time you step on the scale. If you want to take it a step further, give yourself a deadline. “I want to lose 30 pounds before my high school reunion in 4 months”.

So if we are comfortable setting and working goals for most everything else, why do so few people do it with social media?

My advice is to start big and work down. Start by asking yourself these questions:

• What exactly do you want social media to do for you/your company? 
• Do you want to use it to improve your customer service? 
• Do you want to use it to boost attendance at your events? 
• Do you want to use it to sell products and services? 

Goal setting is really important. Most of the time people set a performance indicator without knowing what, if any goal that supports. They say, “I want 50,000 Facebook Fans.” But why? Having 50,000 fans means nothing if it does not support your overall goals and objectives.

Before you move forward with your social media actions, stop and take a few minutes and write down your social media goals. Where possible make goals objective and attach a deadline.

If you need a little help in deciding what your goals should be, remember the S.M.A.R.T. goal-setting method. Make sure your goals are Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely.

Now it's time to build your strategy.

Now that you have planned out and attainable social media goals, it's time to put together a strategy to reach those goals.

The basic social media sites you use and the amount of resources you need to commit to each varies dramatically based on your goals. All too often people think, for example, they have to use Facebook because "it's the most popular" or they want to exclude Twitter altogether because they "don't get it." This isn't the right attitude for developing your strategy. Although your personal opinion matters, choosing the right social media sites to support your goals matters more.

Going back to Kim's analogy: Imagine if you said “Well, I hate vegetables, but I love hot fudge sundaes, so I am going to eat 3 hot fudge sundaes every day to lose weight!”

If you sell retail goods to women, then Pinterest is the place for you. High end professional services? Then LinkedIn is a good place to spend much of your time. Are you a photographer? Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest are definitely more photo and graphics driven. You are more likely to connect to your ideal client there.



It's important that you understand the capabilities of all the social platforms as well as their popular target demographics and what types of content performs well.

On top of picking the right social media platform, your strategy should also include other items such as the resources you will need, key performance indicators (KPI’s), and the measurement tools you will use to track them among other things.

Stop and prepare.

It's so easy at this point to just go out and start posting. However, you should stop and prepare for your launch ahead of time.

Now that you have identified the social media sites you are going to use and established your social media goals and strategy, take some time to prepare before you start generating content. Take this time to

• Create credible, consistent branding to be used across all of your social media sites
• Optimize your profile with website links, keywords
• Update your “About” sections
• Inter-connect sites or create easy navigation amongst them where possible
• Learn the basics on how to use the site, the basic terms of service and etiquette