A huge part of any social media strategy is figuring out what you want out of all your social media related efforts. You must have a clear direction as to where you’re headed or you won’t be maximizing the time spent on social media. A good, targeted campaign is the only way to go. You also want to have a keen understanding of what your business is all about (in other words branding). Your small business must have a clear identity that you seek to communicate to your target audience. You also need quantifiable goals.

Here are some guide questions that could help you in figuring out a goal for your social media strategy:

What is the top thing that you want to achieve for your business with this social media marketing campaign? Do you want more traffic to your website? Do you want brand impressions and increase buzz and awareness about your business? Or is it first and foremost sales conversion? How much do you want your sales to increase? Maybe you just want to create a forum/community where your customers can converge so you can garner feedback and recommendations. Social Media is an excellent tool to listen to your audience and modify your business according to their wants and needs.

What do you want to primarily say to your target audience? Do you want to tell them that you have a cool product that would be useful to them? Do you want to tell them how to use your product?

What is the unique selling point of your product? Why would your potential customers want to choose your product or service over another?

Who are the first people who would most likely use your product? This is the principle of the lowest hanging fruit. You would want to target someone who has the greatest inclination to be a customer.

Here are some examples of some common goals for social media strategies:

• Drive traffic to my website (increase in x% of traffic)
• Increase awareness of my small business
• Increase sales (by x%)
• Customer Service (listen and respond to feedback)

We hope that this helps as your continue to embark on your social media journey towards making your business prosper. Practical Social Media is here to help and give you practical advice. Keep on checking back on the blog for great social media tips and information!