Social Media, Your Website

Before You Begin Your Social Media Strategy, Consider Your Goals

Before you begin your social media strategy, there are some points to consider. As a business owner or marketer responsible for social media, you should never start using social media without clear and measurable business goals. Measurability doesn’t always mean making money, but that’s always a good place to start. Are you hoping to directly increase sales? If not, how can you best measure the value of your social media program against specific business objectives?

Many companies are embracing social media tools to reduce customer service costs by enabling support through online forums. Other companies are replacing expensive focus groups and other market research with online customer forums and advisory boards.

If you’re focusing on building awareness and generating leads, the available metrics are no better or worse than metrics currently available for advertising or public relations programs.

You can measure RSS subscriptions and page views, and you can even measure your influence on market conversations by tracking inbound links to your social media site—a measure at least as worthy as brand awareness.