How to Set Goals and Create a Set of Metrics for Your Content Marketing Strategy
By Andrea Pikscher - eGuide Content Marketing Manager
We get it. It’s LOUD on social media, and some people make those dance trends look so cool. How are you supposed to decide what to post, and when to post? Should you do every single trend that becomes cool? And what about memes, or gifs? As we said, we get it. Before you try to drive off in every single social media direction, let's take a deep breath together. Ready? Breathe in……and out….
Feeling better?
Okay, now let’s take a step back and see where we can start to tackle your goals and metrics. That’s right, even in the jungle of social media, you can still make a plan.
Step 1: What are your goals?
The best first step for you to take when looking at creating social media contents is, what are your goals? Are you looking to sell a new product? Do you want more people to sign up for your newsletter?
Really work at narrowing down your specific goals. And don’t feel pressure to make these your end-all, be-all, never-going-to-change-because-they’re-written-in-stone goals.
You can also run multiple campaigns at the same time - but make sure each campaign you decide what your specific goal is.
Here are a few goals that convert:
Create content that entices viewers back to my blog to increase website traffic
Increase profile visits by including strategic “link in bio” content that changes on a weekly basis
Increase newsletter subscribers by adding a dynamic popup on specific pages of the website
Step 2: You’ve picked your goals - now pick your metrics
Congrats! You’ve narrowed down what your specific ad goals are. You obviously don’t want to just spend hours creating content without knowing how to check in and see if it’s working. So really, steps 1 and step 2 go hand in hand.
It’s now time for you to set your metrics. How will you know if people who come across your content are following your “Call to Action”?
Is it a certain number of sales? Or a certain number of newsletter sign-ups or new subscribers? Post shares, post engagements, and new page likes can also be great metrics depending on what your goals are.
Pro-tip: It will work best if you pick both your goals and your metrics at the same time to make sure your time is spent in the most efficient way possible.
Here are those same goals with metrics included:
Create content that entices viewers back to my blog to increase website traffic by 20%
Increase profile visits by 10% by including strategic “link in bio” content that changes on a weekly basis
Increase newsletter subscribers by 15% by adding a dynamic popup on specific pages of the website
Step 3: Gather data, assess
Once you’ve got your goals, and your metrics decided, it’s time to set your campaign(s) out into the world to fly. Once your campaigns have had a few weeks to run, it’s time to look at the numbers.
First, check your metrics that you established in step 2. What were your conversions? Did you hit your sales goal, your subscriber goal? See what those numbers are and then assess if you found the campaign you ran to be successful or not. If it was super successful, would you want to put money behind the campaign?
If you didn’t hit your metrics, it’s time to assess why. Lucky for us, when you post on social media, they are happy to give you a ton of analytics on your campaigns and posts. More information than what the desired metric was. That information may be able to help you assess where you might have fallen short.
Even if you did hit your metrics, don’t throw that analytic campaign info away! It’s always going to be valuable information to hold onto and apply to your next campaigns, and eventually paid ads.
Content Marketing is a Long Game Strategy
At the end of the day, make your social media presence work for you and your organization. Don’t get overwhelmed by all the noise online, and feel pressured to hit every trend, or post just to post. First, figure out what it is you hope your followers will do when they see your post.
Once you know what you want your followers/consumers to do once they stop on your post, you can start to piece together what kinds of posts, how often to post, and what you want to measure by. Taking just a bit of time to plan will guarantee more ease in your content marketing strategy, as well as more function in your social media ad presence if you decide to start spending ad money on your social channels.
And one of the best parts is that because social media moves so quickly, you are able to assess and try different metrics fairly quickly. We promise you can make social media work for your best interests and company goals within your content marketing strategies.
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