Social media is an important tool for business owners. Unfortunately what often happens is that business owners are convinced of the need to use the tools, they set them up, and then they scramble to come up with content.

While social media can make an incredible difference to your business, jumping in without any thought or a plan can lead to some discouraging results.

Why you need goals

Setting goals for your social media efforts not only allows you to take a look back and see if you were successful, they help with the creation of your content.

For example, knowing that you are hoping to increase sales of a specific product means that you can create content that highlights the knowledge within the product, or link to articles that highlight the importance of knowing more about the topic of your product. Then, in six months, you can look to see if there actually was an increase in sales of the product over that time period.

What should your goals be?

Your goals for using social media can vary a lot. Pick a variety that help you achieve your overall business goals for the year. Some examples include:

Financial

Financial goals can include increasing the amount of clients you work with, selling more overall, increasing the revenue from specific portions of your business.

Reputation

Reputation goals can include becoming a thought-leader in a specific field, or being known as a great speaker, workshop leader or coach.

Community

Community goals can include increasing the numbers of followers you have for each channel, increasing the amount of engagement on certain channels, or increasing the amount that your community shares your content to their networks.

You could create a never-ending list of goals, but take the time to choose 3-4 that align with your business priorities and let them guide the direction you take when using social media to promote your business online.

Leave us a comment or send us an email sharing what some of your social media goals are for the next 6 months!

Using social media to promote your business isn’t as simple as setting up a blog, a Facebook Page or a twitter account. Creating the right kind of content that is designed to achieve your specific business goals takes some forethought.

A social media plan gives you the opportunity to think through what you want to say and the direction to create content in bulk, eliminating the daily scramble for new content.

Here is a basic outline of what to put in a social media plan:

Who are you?

Write down exactly what it is that you do and why. Have you ever written it down concisely? If so, great, just use that! If not, take the time to write it down.

Who is your audience?

As tempting as it is to say “anyone who will pay me” here, don’t. Who are your primary target audiences? There can be more than one. Describe them as thoroughly as you can (age, gender, type of job, level of income, etc)

What are your key messages?

What do you want people to know about your business? You can have 3-4 and they can range from “we sell a great lightbulb” to “we are committed to the best customer service you can imagine” to “social media doesn’t need to be complicated.”

What are your goals?

Your goals for using social media can vary a lot. Pick 3-4 to focus on for the next 6 months. They can be about increasing sales, but they can also be things like “increase our web presence” “build relationships with key online influencers”.

Tactics

This is the real meat of the plan. How are you going to target your audiences with your key messages to achieve your goals?

Give yourself set tasks per week and then fill in an editorial calendar with them.

Examples could be:

Write two blog posts a week.
Acquire two guest posts a month.
Post daily on Facebook.
Post three times a day on twitter.

You can then expand on those further:

Every Monday share a photo of ____ on Facebook and twitter
Every Tuesday promote a blog post
Every Wednesday share a useful tip on ______ on Facebook and twitter.
Every other Friday are guest posts on the blog.
Every Saturday share a post from the archives of your site.

Aside from your editorial calendar what else could you plan to do to attract your audience?

Write guest posts for other blogs.
Offer to be interviewed in podcasts
Build your newsletter list and commit to sending a monthly newsletter.
Hold bi-monthly tweetups

The sky is the limit for tactics. Just remember to be realistic and to think about what your audience wants and would find of value.

Measurement

Based on your tactics and goals, what measurements should you be tracking over the next six months? What is a reasonable result to indicate success?

List a baseline and decide on a reasonable increase in twitter followers. (50 a month?)
Increase engagement on your Facebook page by 25% 50% 100% per month (pick something reasonable based on your current engagement levels).
Increase visits to your site by 20% over 6 months.
Increase sales by 20% over 6 months.
Have 6 guest posts published over 6 months.

Implement

Now take all the above information and put it down on paper. You’re more likely to commit to it and do it if it’s a proper and formal document.

Then do the work. It doesn’t always pay off immediately, but growing your online presence slowly and authentically is the best way to do it. Ask someone to be an accountability partner if you think that will help.

Knowing how to get where you want to go is always easier with a map. Your plan is that roadmap to the destination you’re trying to get to (your goals) - make sure you have one.

Leave a comment below giving us an example of one of your key messages, goals, or tactics.