Get ready to set your social media goals for 2021!
Ah 2021… it can’t come fast enough #amIright?! What a year 2020 has been. One thing that’s been proven this past year, is that social media is not going anywhere and when the world came crashing down, people turned to their online communities for ‘human’ connection, feel-good content and a good old virtual hug.
With the new year approaching fast, it’s a great time to think about setting some new social media goals for 2021. But where do you start and how do you keep track?
Link social goals to broader business goals and use social metrics to measure success
Social media goals should always be linked to your broader business goals! Seems pretty straight forward, but in theory it’s sometimes a bit harder to link them so you can keep track with social KPIs. We all would like to receive sales or bookings for our business in the end, but you have to make sure you’re covering all touch points with customers and make sure you’re working on that top funnel part of your social media plan as well!
Below we’ve made a table to help you set some goals for your own social channels with some examples! What’s your broader [business] goal, what social media metric do I use to measure success.
The above is for Facebook, but you can also do this for any platform of course! Make sure you consider the actions that you can measure on the different platforms [e.g. Make sure to include ‘saved content’ on Instagram.]
Be realistic with your goals, but go outside your comfort zone to achieve them!
We still see it often in type forms… you’d be surprised how often: ‘I’d like to grow to 50K followers within 6 months’. OK, That’s great, but probably not realistic within the current algorithms and most likely your budget. Unless you want to pay Kim K. a sh*tload of money for a post [we’re talking 100K and above] and even then it’s not guaranteed or even the right followers you’re attracting. But, we’re digressing…!
If you already have data available from past social activity that’s great and you can use this to set your new goals. Look across the period of time you have data from and find the average for each metric. This will be your monthly goal to beat. Set some stretch goals with an extra 5-10% to push yourself.
If you don’t have data available, we’d recommend posting on the regular for about a month and use some of that data to set yourself KPIs.
It’s totally fine to adjust some of your goals as well if you see after 3 months that they’re not realistic. A social strategy is a fluid thing [as we like to say here at TDP] and it has to be adjusted accordingly as time flies by.
Determine the tactics to get to your goals
Once you’ve set your goals, look at the steps that you’ll need to take to reach those goals. If your goal is Brand Awareness, what are the activities you’ll need to map out to increase your reach metric and tap into new audiences? Think about things like Influencer outreach and make a plan to reach out each month for a collaborative giveaway. Alternatively, you can invest $$ into a Brand Awareness or Reach campaign this year with Facebook Advertising to help you along the way. If you were only posting only 3 x a week, you could increase this to 6 x a week to increase reach. Break it down into steps and it won’t be as overwhelming.
Keep track and report on the regular
Last but not least, report each month on progress! Are you hitting your set KPIs for your overall goals? Do you need to change tactics? What’s working and what isn’t? Don’t be alarmed by ups and downs, they’re SO normal. Rather than stressing out over red numbers, investigate why they’ve happened. Have you been posting as much, did you have an AMAZING month the month before? As long as you ask yourself questions and keep track on your progress it’s a very worthwhile time investment.
We hope you feel ready to kick some social media goals in 2021, we promise that setting them will be so worth it at the end of the year when you look back on all you’ve achieved!