- Haphazardly posting on social media
won't get you very far.
In fact, it could harm your reputation as a leader
if used incorrectly.
To set yourself up for success from the start,
think about what you're trying to achieve
with your personal use of social media
and how it ties to the company's goals.
Are you looking for access to more customer feedback?
Do you want to build an audience?
Or maybe you want to compete
with a particularly vocal competitor.
Whatever your reason may be,
identify the top three motivators
behind your interest in social media,
and let's pair them with a measurable goal
that drives true business value for your company.
Some goals will be easier to identify than others.
Like, if you're looking to use social media
to build an audience, then keeping track
of the number of followers you're attracting
is one way to measure that.
If you're looking to become more visible in your industry,
then keeping track of the number of views, mentions, shares,
and interactions your content receives is helpful.
On the other hand, measuring the impact
of resolving a crisis on social media
is less straightforward.
To simplify the process, here are different types
of goals to consider for measuring
the success of your social media use.
One is growing brand awareness for you
and your company through social media, which is basically
increasing your visibility amongst customers.
Measure this by looking at the impressions, the reach
of your messages, the size of your audience across channels,
and downloads of your content.
Another goal to pay attention to is audience development,
which is the size of the community
you're building around yourself as a leader,
acting as a representative for your organization.
This is easy to measure by paying attention
to the total number of subscribers, e-mail signups,
followers, and listeners you're attracting on your accounts.
A third goal to consider is driving traffic
to your company's offerings and content, whether it's
produced by you or as a resource from your staff.
For example, Clara Shih, the CEO of a software company
called Hearsay, shares commentary on LinkedIn,
paired with a blog post written by an employee.
The goal here is to drive more traffic to the content
her company is producing, best measured
by seeing how much referral traffic
is driven to their website from social media.
Another goal to aim for is to establish yourself
and the company as a thought leader.
One of the best ways to measure this
is by noting the media coverage about your organization
as a result of what's shared on social media.
This consists of everything from the number
of interview requests received to the number of mentions
the company gets in news articles.
Your goals with social media will change over time,
so monitor your progress on an ongoing basis,
and adapt to what's working to find success
on your own terms with social media.