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Surprisingly, many businesses and brands operate their social media programs without strong strategies. In many cases, their “strategy” centers around putting out content on social media that they think their target audience will like. The result is often significant effort and dollars invested, but with questionable ROI and no clear link back to business results that company leadership is looking for.
To develop a strong social media strategy and a program that aligns with that strategy, the first step is to outline your top-priority business or brand goals. An example of a business goal could be revenue growth, which you may have then determined would be done through a strategy of acquiring new customers or launching a new product line. Other business goals could be improving profitability, increasing market share, improving customer experience and retention, improving sustainability and reducing environmental footprint, or better retaining employees, among others.
Translating Business Or Brand Goals Into Social Media Goals
With your business goals clearly laid out, the next step is to determine if and how those goals can be supported by your social media strategy. For some goals, there may be a clear and direct connection, while for others, social media may play a limited role in achieving the goal.
For each business goal listed, develop the related social media goal or goals. For example, the business goal of growing sales and revenues can be translated into a social media goal by breaking down the steps that would be needed to grow sales and revenues. Start by diving into how the growth of sales will be realized. Is the product or brand already well-known? Is the primary driver of revenue growth going to be increasing repeat sales and the lifetime value of existing customers through new product introductions and capturing more share of the customers’ wallets? Or is there a brand awareness issue that needs to be addressed first, introducing the brand to a targeted set of customers who would become happy customers if they only knew about the brand and its products or services?
The social media goals will then be things like:
1. Increase brand awareness.
2. Educate prospective customers (about product/service benefits and value).
3. Increase sales directly and indirectly.
4. Communicate sustainability accomplishments.
Setting Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Another important element of an effective goal-aligned social media program is KPIs and targets. For each social media goal, identify the most important leading indicator metrics, as well as backward-looking performance-oriented metrics. This should form the set of metrics you look at on an ongoing basis to determine the success of your program in driving to your goals. Targets can be set based on a combination of the metrics required to achieve business goals, a realistic progression from current/recent performance and industry-specific benchmarks.
Developing Social Media Strategy Under Your Goals
With clarity on how social media can help contribute to your business goals, it’s time to develop the social media strategy and underlying program that will drive to these goals.
For example, if one of your goals is growing market share and there is currently limited awareness of the brand, a targeted advertising program on several social media channels would need to be designed to address “top of funnel” brand awareness, “middle of funnel” education and engagement and “bottom of funnel” drive to purchase. The content and ad types need to be carefully tailored to each stage of the funnel to get the best possible results.
Your social media ad program and organic program can both play a role in acquiring new customers and retaining existing ones, among other objectives, assuming a clear strategy and plan is put in place to effectively do so. This starts with selecting the right social media channels, based on your target audience, followed by identifying how each channel’s organic and paid advertising programs can drive to each of your specific goals through content and tactics.
Don’t Miss The Less Obvious Connections
For revenue-related goals, like top-line growth, increasing market share, and improving customer retention and lifetime value, social media is an obvious potential driver of growth. But don’t overlook opportunities to use your social media program to drive to your other business goals.
For example, if your goal is to improve customer experience, one element of which is customer service, think about how your social media program can help. How are your response times on customer complaints or questions on social media? Are customers getting the attention and care they are looking for, and do they feel like they are heard and valued? Are there new customer service channels you should launch that could better serve certain segments of your audience? For instance, some younger audiences may prefer a Facebook Messenger conversation to get important information or quickly resolve a potential issue and will almost never call in to a customer service phone line. Are you taking advantage of automated chatbots to resolve frequently asked questions or to help guide customers through the buying or service process?
There may be other goals that don’t seem to have any initial connection to the social media program or its goals, yet with a closer look, there may be ways to use social media to make an impact. For example, if your company is launching a corporate responsibility or sustainability program because it knows its customers and employees care about these issues, an authentic and creatively designed social media campaign to share successes and the behind-the-scenes journey could be a great way to ensure the efforts are made known and valued.
In summary, a methodical and thorough approach to designing your social media program can help you see the results you are looking for and clearly demonstrate the impact your program is having on business and brand goals.
