Know How to create achievable goals on Instagram

By the end of 2017, smartphones will make up 36.6% of all mobile phones, and by 2021 this share is expected to touch 47.4%, eMarketer estimated.

Additionally, the research firm predicted double-digit growth for mobile ad spending in the next few years in India. By 2021, mobile will account for more than half (~62.0%) of overall digital ad spending, which is expected to hit a total of $2.8 billion. Spending without data to back you up will not work in the long term. A key to justifying your social media work is setting up measurable goals that can showcase improvements in your digital presence.

Let’s outline why you need to set goals and how to go about setting them. lets’s follow that up with some of the most common social media goals.

Why You Need to Set it ?

Time is the most valuable resource . If you’re spending a lot of time on social media for your company, it only makes sense to make sure you’re receiving the best results possible. As a social media executive, you’ll need goals and analytics to show your client that your work is creating results that they want. If you’re a social media manager for a company, you’ll want to make sure the goals are aligned with the company’s vision.

Without goals and metrics, you won’t know if the new strategy you’re trying out is working or if posted something at some time in the week is appropriate time for you to precisely hitting your market or no

How to Set instagram Goals

The key to setting any goal, social media or otherwise, is to be both specific and hard to achieve we say “hard to achieve,” though. You’ll want to believe that the goal is reachable but not so easy that you can reach it in your sleep.

Psychologist and goal setting theorist Edwin A. Locke says in a research study (PDF), “High commitment to goals is attained when (a) the individual is convinced that the goal is important; and (b) the individual is convinced that the goal is attainable (or that, at least, progress can be made toward it).”

In other words, you’ll try your hardest when a goal is both important and moderately difficult to reach.

Create SMART Goals

One common goal-setting technique is to be SMART. This can be an excellent guideline for creating goals that work for your company.

SMART is an acronym for:

• Specific: Your goals should be clear, simple and defined.
• Measurable: This is where analytics come in. You want a goal that has one or more metrics.
• Achievable: Is it achievable or is it not possible within your resources?
• Realistic: With your current resources of time and money, is it possible to achieve your goals?
• Time sensitive: Every goal needs a time frame, whether it’s one year or several months.

In defining your social media goals, start with the broad goals that you’d like to achieve over a year. You can align these goals with your company’s mission statement or current annual goals.

Identify Your Goal Metrics

Next, identify the metrics you’d like to use for each goal. We’ll use “increase brand awareness” as an example goal.

In reaching “increase brand awareness” on instagram, you will want to pay attention to:

A. Comments Received.

What this metric tells you: How engaging is your content.

B. Most Engaged Hashtags.

What this metric tells you: Which hashtags you should use.

C. Engagements Per Follower.

What this metric tells you: Your engagement relative to your audience size.

D. Followers Gained.

What this metric tells you: The total reach of your posts.

E. Referral Traffic.

What this metric tells you: How much traffic your website receives from Instagram.

F. Instagram Stories Metrics.

What these metrics tells you: How popular your Instagram Stories are.

Audit Your Profile to Set Baselines

Once you determine your metrics, audit your profile to create a baseline statistic. This is important because you need to know where you were at when you first started tracking the goal.

Review Your Efforts

Finally, create a feedback loop of taking time to review your statistics. Depending on your goals, you may want to check in on analytics once or twice a month to see what’s working. Is couple of rupees per Instagram post for boosting enough and is it reaching the audience you want? Or are your efforts better focused on other strategies for increasing brand awareness.