Four Top Social Media Objectives & KPIs

• by Dan Bailey

What’s social media strategy? And how can it truly be measured? Major and common questions in the new frontier today. Luckily both these questions can, and should, be addressed simultaneously in upfront planning. If one has the know-how, social media can provide noticeable ROI thanks to alignment with strategic objectives and monitoring.

But enough talk – how can this be done? Below are several examples of strategic social media objectives, corresponding tactical channels, comparisons to traditional marketing channels, and KPIs (key performance indicators). By identifying those upfront, additional measurement tools and social media channels can be explored to optimally suit goals.

Objective 1: Thought-leadership projection (a content strategy for goals of brand attribution or to influence sales)

Rationale: Traditionally, companies have attempted demonstrating industry expertise to enhance brand reputation or to persuade sales (largely B2B but B2C as well).

Objective 2: Brand awareness and fan promoters

Rationale: Traditionally, companies have attempted to build new awareness of their brand in market place for reasons of competitiveness or eventual sales growth (largely B2C but B2B as well).

Objective 3: Crowd-sourcing/R&D/Product support

Rationale: Traditionally, smart companies have done marketing research to drive product attributes (largely B2C but B2B as well). Modern companies can use social media to not only capture more input more easily for product attributes, but even use the groundswell itself for collaboration and creation.

Objective 4: Customer retention/upsales

Rationale: Traditionally, companies have found it more profitable to retain and upsell existing customers than to buy new ones. Social media enables customer communities for just that.

In addition to the above, other objectives may certainly be considered, such as viral or word-of-mouth objectives, or new customer or partner acquisition and couponing. Thanks to my friend and social media master Sherry Heyl for pushing me to write this post. For more on social media marketing objectives and metrics, see my other blog posts in similar social media and metrics tags, follow @SherryHeyl in Twitter, and also I referenced Marketo’s “Sample Social Media Tactical Plan” while writing this post.

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Jake Aull | Marketing Strategy | Social Media | Digital & Creative
email | @jakeaull | jakeaull.wordpress.com