Quality Goals For Social Media

We all know the phrase “it’s the quality that counts, not the quantity”, or some derivative of that.

It’s almost common sense, you want the best you can have, not just a lot. But that doesn’t seem to already be remembered when setting goals for social media.

A lot of social media campaigns will feature numerical targets that PRs the world over are familiar with;

• Increase number of followers to x

• Get x number of clicks

• Secure x number of impressions

The list goes on.

These are not necessarily the wrong goals to aim for, but they should rarely be the sole achievement of your social media campaign.

Setting Goals

So how to go about setting the right goals for you and your organisation?

My first piece of advice would be that every goal needs a reason for its existence. If you are going to set a goal of ‘increase to x thousand followers’, then there needs to be a reason why. Ask yourself if you are just chasing an impressive number at the top of your profile or if you need a certain number.

A campaign to find 10,000 people in support of a petition could do well securing 10,000 followers. But rarely is the headline number important.

Make your work goal driven, justify your goals.

Quality over quantity

My second piece of advice is to pay attention to the ‘social’ part of social media.

Social media, whatever the platform, should be a conversation between you and your followers. Simply broadcasting a message, even if thousands see it, isn’t always the best way to go.

Platforms like Twitter and Facebook allow people to respond with comments, likes, shares and more. If your social media posts have are receiving a lot of (positive) comments, then you are doing something right.

Dedicate some of your time to replying to the comments, direct messages and shares. Your followers will appreciate it. Have you ever received a reply to a Tweet, from a favourite brand? It’s exciting, that’s why some of the most successful brands, like Yorkshire Tea, invest so much time in liking and replying to what you write.

Quality will often drive quantity, but it scarcely works the other way around.

Utilising algorithms

We live in a world ruled by algorithms. How this works in Social Media is important as platforms, like Facebook, have become echo-chambers.

Do you ever look at your news-feed and wonder why it’s showing you a post from so long ago?

Well the reason is that an algorithm somewhere has decided that you want to see that post. These algorithms also prioritise certain type of content. Organic content is prioritised over paid-for, and content from your network is always high up the priority list.

That means that you want your social media reach to be generated, primarily, from shares and posts by followers. Organic reach is worth a lot more than views you have had to pay for.

If you are running a campaign asking people to raise awareness, then use your posts to say something like “hit share and let your friends know”.

Consider how you write your posts and what you ask for.

Making the most of your effort

I believe that if you follow these three simple principles, then you are going to start heading in a healthy direction with your social media.

You don’t want to completely discredit having a lot of followers. But think of your social media as a shop. Do you want thousands of customers who don’t buy anything, or a few high spending customers who tell the world about their purchases?

If you are like most of the world’s Comms and PRs, then your time is precious. You’ve likely got to allocate just a small amount of time to Social. If that’s the case, then you want to make the most of your effort.

Social media is a powerful public relations tool. As such, it’s not going to generate instant results. Invest in it with your time, invest wisely. Slowly and steadily you will increase your reach.