What Are the Goals of a Social Media Campaign?

Social media advertising has exploded in the past decade. Ten years ago, if your company had a social media marketing department at all, it was probably an afterthought headed by whichever team member spent the most time on Facebook. Recently, however, companies have learned how to turn networking sites to their advantage. That’s good, because anywhere your customers spend their leisure time is a place you need to be. But it also means that your social media campaign needs as much planning and forethought as all your other marketing.

Before you can plan a campaign, though, you need to establish goals. Obviously, the goal of any advertisement is to be seen by lots of people. But here are some questions you should bear in mind.

• What’s our target demographic? People gravitate to social media sites with other users of their age. A teen may have a Facebook account to keep track of his aunts’ birthdays, but he probably spends most of his time on Snapchat or TikTok. Before you advertise on a site, find data on its users and decide whether they match your clientele.
• What personality does our company have? There’s nothing new about this question in the field of advertising; some companies create ads that are slick and professional, some loose and silly. However, the word “personality” gains new meaning when your brand has social media accounts. When fans can send friend requests and post comments or send direct messages as if they were talking to any other friend, your brand has to have a persona that’s consistent and engaging.
• What are our KPIs? Before you can even decide on a realistic goal for your campaign, you have to establish what you are measuring — your key performance indicators (KPIs). Do you want more followers or higher engagement from the followers you already have? Do you plan to make your social media accounts sales platforms and measure their impact in dollars and cents?
• Who is following us now? The best part about social media advertising is that you can track its impact. Every platform has an analytics tool that gives you specific details about who engages with your content. That should give you an idea of whom to market for in the future. Just remember, these people aren’t a random subset of your users — they’re going to be skewed because of the demographics of the platform.

When you’re planning your social media campaign, it’s important to begin by setting goals. If you start with a clear idea of what you want your campaign to accomplish your plan will fall into place easily.

© YC Partners 2025