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How To Set SMART Social Media Goals For Your Business:

A Step By Step Guide​.

Intro: Why do I need to set smart social media goals?

January is a great time to start setting new goals for your business! And a great way to start is by establishing the social media goals that will help your brand or company be more successful this year. 

You may be asking yourself: Why do I need to set smart social media goals? Time is one of the most valuable resources you have as a worker, business owner, manager and so on. So if you spend a lot of time marketing your brand on social media, wouldn’t you want to make sure the time you are dedicating is delivering you the best results possible?

Social media goals can help you and your business determine the voice, content, and kinds of channels you want to use. They can also help with determining the time, money, and effort you spend on those specific channels. Without setting goals, you won’t know if your efforts to improve your brand are paying off. You also have less incentive to do better if you don’t set challenges for your business. 

It’s important to have your social media goals be a reflection and contribute to your overall business objectives as well. Deciding on the right social media goals can be the difference between wasting time and actually having a significant impact!

One thing to remember when setting goals for your business is to consider how you did in the past year. You have to look and see what worked well and what didn’t work well; what do you want to improve on, what changes do you want to see happen? That is where the power of analytics comes into play! Social media campaigns will provide you with analytics that can

help you greatly with setting specific goals for your biz. And in order to succeed with your social media marketing goals, you will need to measure analytics.​

If you are a social media consultant, you need goals and metrics to be able to show your clients that the work you are putting in to their brand is generating the results they want to see. If you are a manager of social media for a company, you need to make sure your social media goals are aligned with your brand’s vision. Simply, without goals or analytics, you won’t know if the strategy you’ve been using is creating the results you want. 

In this article, I’m going to give you a step by step guide on how to set smart social media goals for your business. 

Determine the objectives for your business

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It’s important to know that there is a difference between social media goals and social media objectives. An objective comes before the goals and represents what social media will help your organization achieve. This could be factors such as business conversions, increased sales, customer experience etc. Once you have established an objective, your social media goals then represent how and when you’re going to achieve that objective! Goals initially are the details and specifics of how you’re going to accomplish the proposed objective.

Use the S.M.A.R.T. goal framework

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One of the best ways to set social media goals for your business is to use the S.M.A.R.T. goals framework!​

S (Specific): The more specific you are with your objectives, the easier it is to see what you need to do in order to accomplish it. It is great to start with answering the 5 W’s (Who, What, When, Where, Why). Goals need to be clear, defined, and distinct.

M (Measurable): This is where your analytics come in. You want to establish concrete criteria for measuring progress of achieving each goal set. Also determine if your goal is measurable. Ask yourself questions “How much?” “How many”

A (Attainable): Another way to put this is “realistic”. Is the goal your setting

one that possibly can be reached? Is the goal you have set for your business achievable or is it unrealistic?

R (Relevant): A relevant goal means that it has the potential to impact your business’s objectives, values, or vision. When making social media goals, they should support your business's overall marketing strategy as well.

T (Time-Based): Give yourself a deadline and time frame for your goals! You can set weekly, monthly or even quarterly goals.

S.M.A.R.T. goals are one of the most popular goal-setting frameworks for businesses. The reason S.M.A.R.T. goals are popular among businesses and why it is a successful strategy is because it is easy to understand, to act on, and to follow up with. And writing down the S.M.A.R.T. social media goals you want to set for your business is a great place to start!

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Brainstorm the social media goals you want to achieve

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​When deciding on your social media goals, start off with the broad, general goals that align with your main objective. For example, if your main objective is to "increase sales by 30% this year", think of all the smaller, attainable goals that will help you accomplish that through the use of social media tools. Some of these broad goals are even specified in the social media platforms' resources for businesses, and they may include:

  • ​Increase brand awareness 
  • Drive traffic to your website
  • Generate new leads
  • Grow revenue (by increasing signups or sales)
  • Boost brand engagement
  • Improve conversion rates 
  • Attract local customers

Once you have decided on what some of your broad goals are, it’s time to figure out the metrics of each goal.

Identify the metrics of each goal

I will use an example to explain this step. Let’s say you are the business owner of a local deli and you decide that one of the goals that your want to achieve for your business this year is to “increase brand awareness”. Increasing brand awareness would put your deli on the top of mind of the locals, causing more people to buy from you than from other delis in town. That's how this goal would work in benefit of your overall objective of "increasing sales by 30% this year". 

Let’s create an example of identifying the metrics of your goal using the social media platform of Facebook. So if you want to increase brand awareness of your deli through Facebook, you will want to take notice and pay attention to a couple different numbers:

  • ​Page and Post Impressions
  • Post Reach
  • Fan/Follower Count
  • Link Clicks (if linking to a company blog, website etc.)
  • Website Analytics for Facebook referrals 

Now let’s see how your goal “increase brand awareness” would look in a S.M.A.R.T. framework breakdown. Let’s say you want to increase brand awareness on Facebook for your deli  in the next 6 months. The S.M.A.R.T. framework would look something like this:

Specific: Increase brand awareness of deli on Facebook account within a five mile radius of our location.

Measurable: Increase fan/follower count by 20%. Increase link clicks on posts about the deli by 15%. Have an average Post Reach of 500 people per post.

Achievable: Yes. Boost new deli posts with advertising by $15 per post, targeting an audience within a five mile radius. Consider also posting neighborhood specials to spread the word out about the deli​

Relevant: Yes. Increased brand awareness will make people choose my deli instead of others. 

Time-Based: 6 month time limit on achieving the goal.

Audit and Review

Audit Your Social Media Profiles to Set Baselines
Once you determine your metrics, audit your social media profiles to create a baseline statistic. This is super important because you need to know where your numbers and statistics were at when you first started tracking the goal.

Review Your Efforts
The last thing you will need to do is to create a feedback loop of setting aside time to review your statistics. Depending on your goals, it may be helpful to check on analytics once or twice a month to see what is working and what isn’t working. Is $15 per Facebook post for boosting enough? Is it reaching the audience you want? Or should you focus on other strategies to help with increasing brand awareness?

Don't be afraid to change

As you analize your results, don't be afraid to tweek your actions in order to achieve your goals. Consider if you should improve or reduce your online ads budget, if you should include a reward for each referral, if you should change the graphic design of your ads, etc. Don't be afraid to change!



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