Blog | Page 28 of 80 | Social Speak Network Social Media + Digital Marketing Education

5 Social Media Goals To Get You Started

Is 2018 your year to tackle social media and create campaigns that your business benefits from it? If you answered YES!, this blog post is for you! We will review common mistakes businesses make as they craft social media campaigns, tips to use as you are defining your goals, and 5 measurable goals you can use to determine whether or not your social media campaigns are effective.

A Common Mistake Businesses Make…

Jumping into social media without identifying goals or measuring successes is a common mistake many businesses make and it leads to a very frustrating social media experience. Many who jump into social media for business without a goal or without a plan tend to throw up their hands and give up stating that they threw away their money and social media just doesn’t work! Don’t let this happen to you! Read on…In this article, we will explore 5 of the most common goals people measure when using social media.

“What gets measured, it what gets done”

Measurement is the key to anything you do! If you can measure your social media progress and outcome, you will know the strategies and tactics to put in place

Here are some tips and things to think about before setting goals for your social media campaigns:

Make sure your social media campaign goals are in line with your overall business goals
Select different goals for different social platforms – not all platforms will yield the same results
Select goals that make sense for the social media platform you are using
Choose goals that are measurable
Track your progress

What Should Your Goals Be For Social Media?

5 sound goals you should set and strive and how to measure them are listed below:

Brand Awareness – Brand awareness can be measured in terms of:
1. Fan followers. Create a stair-step approach when it comes to tracking brand awareness. A common goal to start with is to gain your first 100 followers and build from there.
2. Reach – how many people did your message reach (a popular Facebook statistic)
3. Mentions – how many times is your brand tagged or talked about in other social media posts
4. Shares – how many times were your posts shared
Website Traffic – Make sure your web designer has installed Google Analytics on your website. This will help you track how much traffic is coming from social media platforms and channels. Monitor the progress on a consistent basis and set goals based on the traffic trends you see.
Website Loyalty – How loyal are your customers? Do they review what you are talking about on social media and then click through to your website to get more? Google Analytics can help you measure repeat visitors.
Brand Engagement – This is a popular social media result that many measure. Based on the comments, likes, and interactions your brand receives you will be able to understand how your brand is perceived, the level of brand loyalty your company has, and the community your brand is building.
Conversions – How many people saw your social media posts and then converted into paying customers. Again, this will be measured by Google Analytics, letting you know how many sales were a result of your social media campaigns.

There are many more things you can measure through social media. It all depends on why you are there. It could be anything from “How many times did my phone ring?” to “How many people clicked through to my lead generation form?” Take the time to really think about why you want to be on social media. Once you determine why you want to be there, build your campaigns around the reason.

Need help tracking your results? Download our tracker by clicking HERE.

January 29, 2018/by Caitlin McDonald

Goal Setting, Membership Only, Social Media, Video

Setting your Social Media Goals [Video]

Setting your social media goals can be difficult. Often times we focus only on making money through social media, but this leaves so much less on the table. In fact, when we only consider making money through social media, we forget about all other aspects of a sales process, specifically lead nurturing and education.

This video covers some of the common social media goals that you can choose for your focus and how to turn them into SMART goals. I also go into which tracking tools you can use for measuring your results and, my most important piece of advice with social media… to have fun!

The PDF from the video is available for download here.

January 24, 2018/by Caitlin McDonald

Business Resource, Content Creation, Membership Only, Video

Content at your finger tips

Are you tired of going through hundreds of websites each week to find content to share or write about? These two free tools will help you get your industry new at your fingertips!

Feedly

The content you need to accelerate your research, marketing, and sales.Feedly allows you to become a smart reader with less noise!

Google Alerts

Monitor the web for interesting new content. How often. As-it-happens. At most once a day. At most once a week. Sources. Automatic. News. Blogs. Web. Video. Books. Discussions. And much more!

January 23, 2018/by Amber Irwin

Blog, Goal Setting, Membership Only, Video

How to track your goals

WOW, can you believe it is already the 22nd of January? Where has this month gone?

I hope you have had the time to write down your SMART goals, we have given you so much useful information to really make 2018 a success! Sometimes writing down your goals is the easy part, right? It is actually working towards them and tracking them that can be the challenge.

By the time April comes around people are usually way ahead of the game or have fallen back to their old routine. We have done some research for you to find easy and convenient ways to track your goals, so at the end of the year, you can look back at all you were able to accomplish!

Sometimes people feel that our phones can be a distraction to our lives, which I would agree. At the same time, we can use them for good and help us stay on track of our goals! Our phones are usually something that is ALWAYS with us, by our bed, on our desk, in the car, at the gym, wherever and whatever you do during the day, your phone is probably close by. Whether you are wanting to track personal goals or business goals, it is important to be able to monitor your success.

We have found 3 apps that you may enjoy to keep track of your goals:

Strides

We have really nailed down your SMART goals for this year, using this app Strides your can Track all your Goals & Habits in one place. Always stay motivated and on track with flexible reminders and beautiful charts to help you achieve your goals.

SMART Goal Setting
Track more than habits. Set Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant & Timely goals too:

Target value by date
Set a goal to increase or decrease anything, and see your pace, projection, and daily goal.

Average over time
Keep tabs on your average per day, week, month, year, or rolling (e.g. Last 7 days).

Project with milestones
Break a project down, and always know if you’re on pace to complete it by the due date.

Time Planner

This is a great app to be able to create all those lists you like and be able to check them off! You can track your goals, lists and habits with TimePlanner.

Do you also keep planning 100 things a day to see you accomplish maximum 10 in the end?

Does your time fly very fast as well?

Have you ever thought, where it has disappeared?

Quit wondering where see it with your own eyes!

This application that helps you to increase your productivity, organizing your days, weeks, months and years, and provides the opportunity to improve your planning skills and to commensurate your strength and capabilities. Boost your effectiveness and productivity in different areas of life!

Why this App?

Fast and optimized time management tool
Absolutely no ads (seriously!)
Convenient schedule with timeline and part of the day modes
Easy time tracking with bubbles
Handy customizing with loads of icons and colors
Two types of intents – goal and ritual
Reminders of different types
Task priority marks
Notes for categories, activities and tasks
Alarm + captcha to fight procrastination
Moon calendar
Backup

Google Goals

Who else LOVES Google calendar???? This one I think may be my favorite for goal tracking.

Find time for your goals with Google Calendar

Whether it’s reading more books, learning a new language or working out regularly, achieving your goals can be really hard. One day it’s “I got called into a last-minute meeting.” The next day it’s “I have a friend in town.” And before you know it, your goals are delayed or forgotten. In fact, with all the things you need to do in a given week, it’s probably harder than ever to find the time—even when your goal really matters to you.

That’s why starting today, we’re introducing Goals in Google Calendar. Just add a personal goal—like “run 3 times a week”—and Calendar will help you find the time and stick with it.

Goals are easy to set up

To set a goal (like “Work out more”), simply answer a few questions (like “How often?” and “Best time?”), and you’re all set. From there Calendar will look at your schedule and find the best windows to pencil in time for that goal.

If you still LOVE to write down your weekly or monthly goals and be able to look at them on a daily basis, don’t worry, we have you covered as well. Below is a checklist you can write down your monthly and weekly goals and then input the action items you need to make to complete this goal.

Download your checklist here

January 22, 2018/by Amber Irwin

Business Advice, Digital Marketing, Video Marketing

Podcasting and Video Marketing (The Real Benefit to Your Business)

With Search Engine Optimization becoming more and more difficult as competition continues to emerge, your business can set itself apart by Podcasting and Video Marketing.

4 Reasons Why Your Business Needs to be Podcasting

Podcasts are a powerful marketing tool. Over the years, it has garnered immense popularity, with more and more businesses discovering how it can benefit their company. If you still haven’t incorporated podcasting into your marketing campaign, then you’re losing out on a lot of business opportunities.

Here are 4 reasons why your business needs to be podcasting.

Brand awareness

As mentioned above, podcasting is a powerful marketing tool. It can help you reach new audience, drive traffic to your site, and even build a community. By broadcasting podcasts regularly, it will help develop your company’s brand to make it a household name.

Simplicity

A lot of people are put off by the seemingly confusing technical aspects of recording a podcast. Producing a podcast is not as complicated as what most people think. You do not need a lot of money either to start a podcast.

To start, all you need is a microphone, a headset, a recording device, and editing software. A good wifi connection is also important for uploading the files.

Easy to consume

Humans have a very short attention span. In fact, an average person has an average attention span of 8 seconds. If you want to get your message across, then you need to make it easier for your audience to consume and understand what you’re trying to say. Podcasts can help you do that.

A 1,500-word article may provide your audience the information they need. However, not everyone will have the patience to read through the entire article. With podcasts, you can convey the message in a more interactive way. Plus, people can listen to podcasts during their commute or while doing other things at work or at home.

Build better relationship with your audience

Podcasts provides a more personal way of getting information. Instead of just reading content on your blog or email, they get to hear your voice through podcasts. This makes your brand more personable. Overtime, people will be more familiar of your voice and presentation style.

Building a relationship with your audience helps in building trust. Once you gain their trust, it would be easier for you to turn them into paying customers. After all, people are more likely to buy something from someone they trust.

4 Reasons Why Your Business Should Use Video Marketing

The use of video in content marketing is on the rise. A lot of businesses are centering their marketing strategies on videos to present content in a more personal, compelling way.

Here are 4 reasons why your business should use video marketing.

Capture the attention of people

Among the different types of content, video content seem to be the most effective in capturing people’s attention. With the sheer amount of new content being published on a daily basis, it can be difficult to cut through the noise. For some people, reading a long blog post can be boring. In an age of short attention span, video makes it easier for time-constrained viewers to consume and digest complex content in a shorter amount of time. If you want to capture the attention of your target audience, try creating more videos.

Higher engagement

According to a study that was conducted by Moz, videos get a lot more engagement as compared to other types of content such plain text posts or photos. In the said study, they revealed that posts with videos receive nearly 300% more inbound links.

There are numerous types of videos that you can use for your business. You can create demonstrations, animated explainer videos or how-to videos. You may also compile photos and videos from people who use your products and use it to promote your products. No matter what video you choose, make sure that the videos you create are congruent with your overall style and ethos of your brand.

Improve SEO

Contrary to what most people think, Google doesn’t just use text-based content to assess the relevancy of your web page to a specific keyword. It also takes into account other types of content you use, including photos, videos, and a combination of text and photos.

For best results, we suggest that you include a transcript of your video. Not only will it be beneficial for your audience; it can also help search engines to understand the relevancy of the video. Also, don’t forget to include the keywords in your video’s meta tags.

Video is mobile-friendly

Most people do almost everything on their smartphone. They use it to communicate with their family, friends, and colleagues, research information, schedule meetings, and even order a pizza. Almost half of the adult population say they can’t live without their smartphones.

In today’s digital world, videos can easily be accessed with a click of a button. By incorporating videos to your marketing strategy, you get to communicate your desired message and encourage your desired action.

January 21, 2018/by Caitlin McDonald

Email Marketing, Membership Only, Tutorials, Video

How to Create a Landing Page Using Mailchimp

How to use MailChimp’s New landing page feature to build campaigns.

January 18, 2018/by Caitlin McDonald

Download, Goal Setting, Growth Prompts, Membership Only

Reaching and Attaining your Goals

Last week in the Social Speak Network we discussed setting goals for your business. It all starts with creating SMART goals and making sure these goals are driven by your Internal Motivators rather than External forces. If you missed these topics, please click to get all caught up:

This week, we are focusing on Reaching and Attaining your Goals.

The PDF Download is Available Here

The purpose here is to give you the tools you need to make sure you are being productive as you work towards you business and personal goals. Far too frequently, especially as a business owner, things pop up and derail our journey to leading a more successful life. What can you do about this? My solution, following the advice of Todd Herman of the 90 Day Year, is to focus, as his title reflects, on shorter increments of time. Focusing on shorter increments of time allows you to stay more focused on the efforts that are going to drive you forward.

The premise is that you can utilize Time Blocking to make sure that rather than multitasking, you are focusing specifically on elements that will make a difference in your business and life. I feel this ties in with Tim Ferris’ book, 4 Hour Work Week, in terms of finding ways to structure your time more efficiently (hiring virtual assistants to aid with repetitive projects, checking email at specific points during the day, etc).

So how can you structure your SMART goals to be more attainable in your business?

Many of you may have focused on only your business goals within the SMART goals worksheet, in this scenario, we will be needing to grow your list slightly. If you only work towards your business goals, you may not be structuring enough time to work on personal and family goals, as well.

Step 1: Within the categories of Work, Education + Personal Development, Health, Family, and Something for Others, what is your number 1 SMART goal?

The worksheet provided at the end of this article includes space to enter these goals.

Step 2: Most likely, these goals are for the entire year. Working backwards, where would you like to be for each of your goals in 90 days (3 months)? It is alright if you want to complete the entire goal within the 90 days.

Step 3: To reach the goal or your progress towards the goal, what needs to be accomplished each week? What TIME do you need to set aside each week to ensure these tasks be completed?

Why do you need to understand the time it will take for you to reach your goals?

Within our daily lives, especially as business owners, we always have things popping up. When you are working towards our goals, knowing how long you need to focus on each one allows you to Time Block your week. This doesn’t mean necessarily writing down everything that you will be working on for the week at the specific time, but it does mean blocking off an hour (or however long you need) to focus specifically on one goal without interruption. No email, no social media, no phone calls. Just you and your work towards the goal.

Let’s say your goal to engage with your email list more frequently. What does this actually mean? Be more specific. What about, send 1 email to your email list each week with the goal of scheduling the email 1 month ahead of time.

To achieve this goal in 90 days, you would need to: come up with an email template, decide on the day of the week to send your email, come up with topics to discuss in your email campaign, start sending/ scheduling the emails. To have the goal of scheduling the emails out 1 month ahead of time, over the course of 90 days, you would need to write and schedule 4 extra emails (13 emails to be sent out during the 90 days + 4 pre-written for the following month).

Take the time to think about the amount of time you would need to prepare each email:

Email prep (template selection, day of week, etc): 1 hr
Content for each email: 45 min

From here, figure out how long you need to spend each week to achieve your goal of writing 17 emails in 90 days.

17 emails divided by 13 weeks equals 1.3 emails per week (17/13=1.3).
In other words you would need to write one complete email and start the draft of the next email (or finish the draft of the email you started the week prior).
This equates to just about 1 hour per week to achieve your goal in 90 days (1.3 emails per week times 45 min per email equals 58.8 minutes per week). That seems pretty doable, right?

This means each week you just need to block off one hour to work on your newsletter.

Now, let’s just look at if you wanted to write all of the newsletters for the year within that 90 days, how long would you need to spend per week?

52 newsletters divided by 13 weeks equals 4 emails per week
45 minutes per email times 4 emails per week equals 180 minutes per week
You would need to spend 3 hours per week or just over 30 minutes per day to write a years worth of newsletter content in 90 days. This actually could be a great goal to have for your business.

You can follow this same process for all of your goals in the 5 categories listed above. As you move along in the 90 days, assess if you are actually committed to focusing only on the one goal for the blocked time allotted. Often if you find yourself falling behind, it may be because you aren’t committing to this task specifically. If you find you need more time, create 2 blocks during the week for your goal or 1 block of time each day to make sure you are progressing towards it.

Personally, I tend to choose themes for my years and create goals that relate back to these broad themes. In 2018, my theme is Organize. This includes my house (we already tackled our ‘hoarding closet’ and donated 2 giant bags of clothing, old bed sheets, old bags, and shoes to goodwill), my business (creating a process for setting my top priorities each day), my family (doing a better job managing childcare for our toddler), etc. So, however you choose your SMART goals for the year, make sure you start tackling the ones that are going to make the biggest difference in your work and life.

This 90 Day Year framework is available for download HERE. In the download you will find sheets to organize each of the top goals in the 5 categories as well as a weekly time blocking sheet to help you set specific times to focus on your goals. Again, during this time, you are not to answer emails or phone calls and you should be purely focused on the task at hand.

Download PDF for the 90 Day Year Here.

[This PDF is not the actual pdf that you would receive from Todd Herman’s 90 Day Year]

January 15, 2018/by Caitlin McDonald