Category: Technology

The goals and objectives of social media for business have been adhocly targeted by traditional marketers and public relations departments, who “aim and shoot” for results in the same way that have throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s (one-way megaphones), but it seems business is just now starting to see what is possible and why it should be done using the power of social media.

When the understanding of social media objectives are unclear, it is difficult to take good aim, even for good goals. To have great goals we must have [and understand] clear objectives. As in most cases, this involves turning a tactic into a strategy.

Social Media Objectives, examples:

1) Engagement, of new customers: Find and convert people who may not know about your organization’s brand, but who are talking about the problems that your company can solve.

• Possible Goal: Get ten (10) new visitors, to visit more than one page in your Website; and get 50% of them to preform a desired/defined action.
• Notes: This can be done by finding people [using non-branded keywords for your industry] who have the problems that your company has a solution for. Then, extend real, good, free advice to help them — with a [campaign-tagged] link back to your Website!

2) Engagement, of current customers: Find and reinforce the desired behavior, from current consumers who are talking about your brand [for better or for worse] and reply back to them accordingly.

• Possible Goal: Respond to every mention […or a percentage of mentions] of your organization’s brand within twenty-four hours or less.
• Notes: If the consumer is happy, then thank them for their patronage and support! If they are unhappy, then offer sincerity and extend real help to acknowledge and mitigate any legitimate issues that they may have had. (This can become very tricky with some consumers, so be sure to work closely with your sales and customer service departments, so you are armed with information, and so you can also help to prevent the same issues from reoccurring again.)

3) Competitive intelligence, from competitors customers: Find your competitions’ brands on social media, then sit back quietly listen-in on the conversations!

• Possible Goal: Discover and detail the top three [most significant or most occurring] positive AND negative situations, which have been experience through the consumers mentioning the competitors’ brands’.
• Notes: Present this information to sales, customer service, and executive leadership — to show what your organization can do differently, or what it should keep doing the same. Also note, although you may want to engage some consumers, in some cases, keep in mind that you have an advantage by remaining unnoticed by the competition. While there is strength in speaking-up and engaging in social media, there is also strength in keeping the “mouth/fingers” shut and the “ears/eyes” open when you’re not a part of the original conversation.

The objectives that any company has can look very similar from organization to organization, no matter the size or industry or the company, but the goals that each company has for the same objective will vary from organization to organization.

The point is, to know what you are trying to accomplish, and why you are trying to accomplish this, through company and departmental objectives.  Then, you can properly define what the social media strategy is, the objectives, and obtainable goals — for the highest yielding use of social media for your organization.

What do you think? What are your objectives and goals of social media?