Despite the immense opportunities good social media can afford businesses, many operate their platforms and profiles in isolation, often putting out content that they think their target audience will like but that doesn’t necessarily make sense to their business goals, ethos or offering.
To leverage social media’s full potential, a business must align its social media strategy with its business goals by defining its business goals and outlining its top priorities
For some, this could be acquiring new customers; for others, it’s ensuring the success of a new product line or increasing market share.
"Whatever your goals are, it’s critical that you define them up front and only then start looking at how your social media strategy can support these.
Most businesses can easily outline their business goals.
But what do social media goals look like, and how can they be linked to business objectives?
The most common social media goals include increasing brand awareness, driving sales, and improving customer experience.
If your business goal is to increase the level of familiarity and recognition of your brand among its target audience, then a good social media goal alignment would be to increase brand awareness.
For brand awareness, your social media strategy will need to focus on building a large but targeted following.
This requires creating content that draws attention to your brand’s story and values, accompanied by a targeted advertising or boosting strategy designed to drive reach across social media channels.
If your business goal is to increase profitability, a great way social media can help is to drive sales.
Social commerce is currently booming on most social platforms and is a powerful way to not only move product but to boost conversations too.
However, driving sales through social media requires more than just promoting your offering—it also involves generating leads and increasing website traffic.
To succeed, focus on platforms where your target audience is most active and maintain consistency in posting, as regular engagement helps with social media algorithms.
Alongside promotional posts, include user-generated content such as product reviews and consider influencer-led campaigns to drive trial and engagement.
If your business goal is to increase customer satisfaction, social media can assist considerably by helping to improve your customers’ online experience.
With most modern consumers now engaging with social media before anywhere else, you have an amazing opportunity to ensure your customers feel seen, appreciated, and receive a high level of service off the bat.
Social media enhances customer satisfaction by providing a direct and immediate channel for communication and support, eliminating long wait times for responses via email or phone.
But exceptional customer satisfaction doesn’t come easy.
“As a business, you need a dedicated person or team willing to handle all customer queries efficiently.
The beauty of this is that if done right, personal support can raise the respect and appreciation of your business immeasurably, and that is invaluable.
