Set SMART Social Media Goals

If you're an entrepreneur, you've probably already heard about "SMART" goals. This type of goal setting is just as important to your social media strategy as to your business planning.

Here's a re-cap using a Social Media context:

Image from: http://askjeremyjones.com/the-pursuit/smart-goals-image/

Goal: To increase Antenna Social's online presence.

This goal is vague and difficult to measure so it can never be checked off that ever growing to-do list. So, let's make it SMART.

SPECIFIC: "Online presence" means a lot of things. Pick something specific, it may turn one goal into several goals but then you'll have more to check off your list :)

Updated goal: Gain new fans to Antenna Social's Facebook Page.

MEASURABLE: How does one measure "gain new fans"? If we get 2 new fans, can we check it off our to-do list? We'd end up putting it back on our to-do list as soon as it's checked off!

Updated goal: Gain 1000 new fans to Antenna Social's Facebook Page.

ATTAINABLE: Looking at the original goal, is it realistic? That depends on all the other aspects of the goal. I think we should move this to the end which would make the acronym SMRTA goals, which just doesn't have the same ring. So let's revisit after looking at the other pieces.

RELEVANT: Is the goal relevant to your business and its success? In our case, we're a Social Media business so having a robust online presence is very important. Looking at the updated goal, Facebook is a key Social Network that will help all our other networks grow. Check mark! Although it is good to consider at this point what 1000 fans will do for our business. Having a smaller amount of fans who are engaged is better than having a large following that aren't really interested in your content. So I'll revise it to 500 instead.

Updated goal: Gain 500 new fans to Antenna Social's Facebook Page.

TIME BASED: How can we measure a goal without setting a due date? In the original goal there is no date – so after 2 years we could look back and say, "Hey, we achieved our goal!" but is that doing our business any favours? Probably not. Set a due date so that you can check it off your list sooner! Consider breaking your initial goal into multiple goals such as a short term goal and a long term goal. Heck, you can get really serious and set a really long term goal.

Updated goal: Gain 500 new fans to Antenna Social's Facebook Page by June 1, 2013.

Now review the goal and check back in on whether it is ATTAINABLE or not. What would we have to do to gain 500 new fans in one month? Paid ads, contest, more time and effort on content production... is the return on our investment worth spending the time and $ building that many fans? At this point in our business, it just isn't realistic so we should drop the number to something more attainable within the time frame and budget. At this point you may want to re-jig the dates or break it into multiple goals as mentioned in the TIME BASED explanation.

Updated goal: Gain 50 new fans to Antenna Social's Facebook Page by June 1, 2013. Have a total of 500 fans on Antenna Social's Facebook Page by Oct 1, 2013. Have 1000 Facebook Fans by Jan 1, 2014.

Ok, go set some Social Media SMRTA goals now! er, I mean SMART goals.

https://www.facebook.com/AntennaSocial
@AntennaSocial