4 Social Media Marketing Objectives You Want to Set for Your Company

What is social media marketing?

Social media marketing is the use of social media for marketing purposes, namely, to build a company's brand, increase sales, and drive website traffic. 

In addition to providing companies with a way to engage with existing customers and reach new ones, social media marketing relies on analytics that track the success of a coampnyìs social media efforts. Analytics and social media listening tools help marketers identify pain points and successes in their strategies and opportunities for further growth. 

Why you need social media marketing objectives

Any respectable strategy is defined by clear goals and objectives. And social media marketing is no exception. Effective social media goals align with broader marketing and business objectives, which means that social media marketing objectives will also be part of the company’s marketing strategy and goals.

It's important for a social media manager or content creator to identify and set Social media marketing objectives because they will guide their efforts and inform their strategy. When working with something so fiddly and broad and an ever-evolving platform like social media, it's important to have focus and a clear idea of what you’re working toward. In the end, it is your destination—namely, your goals—that determines your route—that is, your strategy.

Benefits of having clear and social media goals

Well-constructed social media objectives will also help you:

• Manage your budget. This involves the budget for paid advertising through social media (LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram ads, etc.) and for collaborations with influencers, for example, in the case of influencer marketing.
  
  
• Structure and streamline your workflow. If you know what you’re working toward, it’s also, in turn, easier to define your priorities and focus your efforts.
  
  
• Prove your marketing’s return on investment. Analytics and management tools will help you gauge the impact of your efforts and track different metrics that you can use to gather results about your objectives.
  
  
• Align your social media activity with your organization’s broader business objectives. As I mentioned earlier, social media marketing strategies should be aligned with the broader company goals and strategy, as social media also plays a bigger and bigger role in assuring a steady flow of interested prospects.

Examples of social media marketing objectives

Examples of common social marketing goals include:

Generating leads

At the end of a marketing campaign, it’s generally expected that brand content has generated social media followers and interactions with prospective customers. In other words, a number of good quality marketing leads. 

If you decide to set this as one of your social media marketing objectives, you might add associated KPIs such as the number of leads generated by social media —which are turned into qualified commercial leads and integrated into your company’s CRM platform—and lead growth from social media—the growth rate of conversions from social leads to sales leads.

Driving traffic to a website or online store

Setting this as a goal for your social media marketing strategy entails creating a specific social media strategy, which will probably include planning social media campaigns that are meant to drive leads—followers and prospective buyers or customers—directly to your website. 

This heavily relies on the creation of content that builds thought leadership and generates enough value for your audience to want to convert to your website.

Driving brand awareness

Brand awareness is a crucial social media marketing objective and one that we recommend you always include in your strategy. It can influence many stages of the customer journey—from prospection to the sales process and beyond. Plus, it positions a brand as a leader in its sector and builds authority and trust. 

Driving brand awareness can be achieved through a number of actions that will be natural parts of your social media marketing strategy—the creation of original content, personalized promotions aimed at the target audience, etc.

Increase Customer Loyalty

Another major goal of social media and a possible social media marketing objective is to create a long-lasting relationship between the target audience and the brand. 

Social media is the perfect place to do that because it allows your brand to directly engage with followers and reach new audiences. The way you do that determines how authentic a connection you forge with them. As a general rule, engaging with social media followers who have a certain level of credibility or influence among the target audience is always a good idea.

When setting your own social media marketing objectives, it’s important to consider how they can contribute to your company's overall business goals. Be sure to do your research beforehand to understand how each social media platform works, its peculiarities, strengths, and weaknesses so that you can adapt your strategy to each. Keep in mind that you can always tailor different content to different apps.

Marketing objectives often use the SMART method—you might want to follow the same approach to make your social media marketing objectives specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely and ensure they will positively impact your business's bottom line and goals.