The Link in Bio Guide to Goal Setting

Everything you need to know about setting, tracking, and reporting goals on social media.

Welcome to the first of many Link in Bio Guides! Think of these as evergreen resources that go in-depth on specific social topics. The idea here is to create a series that you can always come back to—referencing these guides when, for example, your boss asks for a report or a new hire is onboarded.

Today’s guide is all about setting goals on social media. We are going to cover:

• Goals vs. intentions

• Types of goal setting

• How to set realistic goals

• Benchmarks

• Tracking goals

• Reporting

These guides will sometimes be put together in collaboration with other social professionals—this one, for example, was researched and written by Todd Needle, former social manager at Shopify. I knew Todd was right for this guide because he put together a robust reporting infrastructure during his time at Shopify and Bespoke Post. Plus, he’s always doling out helpful information in the Link in Bio Discord.

I’m really excited about this new series and would love to hear your feedback on it! Feel free to reply to this email with any and all thoughts. Alright, let’s get into it.

Before We Dive In…

Hello hello! Thank you for coming to my TODDTalk. I’m glad you’re here. It’s my sincere hope that we’ll learn something together today about goal setting.

Contrary to popular belief, goal setting is not a set-it-and-forget-it situation. As you’ll come to find out below, goal setting is a constant, iterative process. While your team’s goals should often be your north star, I hope that this guide helps you approach goals holistically, and without fear of a little fluidity. Or just fear in general. Because goal setting doesn’t have to be scary!

Goals vs. Intentions

I first want to acknowledge that there is a difference between a goal and an intention. Both are valuable. Both have merit. Both belong in your strategy documents with different success metrics. 

Goals are future-focused and concrete. They define an end state—in our case, this is often a metric. It’s measurable. And it’s something you aim for before you can move on to the next thing. It’s the what.

For example, you might set a goal to increase your overall engagement rate from 3% to 4% by June. Or to grow your Instagram following by 10% within the quarter. 

Intentions are present-focused, and they often exist independently of goals. An intention is an aim—often related to change—that helps you figure out what direction you want to take to reach your goal. It’s the why or how.

For example, you might set an intention to post more content that elicits follower participation. Sounds like a great way to increase engagement. 

According to Terri Cole, LCSW, “When you are in the driver's seat, goals are your destination. Intentions are the route you plan to take.” 

Types of Goal Setting

We see a few examples of goals you might set above, but let’s dive a little deeper. First (and you may disagree with me, which is fine), I’d be remiss if I did not encourage you to set SMART goals (insert joke about being smart and good at your job here). 

Specific

• What needs to be accomplished? Who is responsible? 

Measurable

• Assign a quantifiable metric you can track towards

Achievable

• Is your goal something your team can accomplish in its current state? 

Relevant

• How does this goal connect to the company or team’s big picture? 

Timely

• What’s the end date? What are some key dates you aim to hit?  

In my view, this is the easiest way to ensure that you are setting attainable goals. Let’s set ourselves up for success, yes? Yes! 

What I find so enticing about this goal-setting structure is that you can map your results (successful or otherwise) back to a specific set of parameters. If nothing else, this helps you set clear expectations with leadership, and could help you avoid any uncomfortable finger-pointing* later on.

*being asked why that horizontal campaign video the creative team made you post “didn’t go viral”

Here’s an example: 

Instead of “I am going to learn French” try “I am going to watch one French television show per week so that I can turn off the subtitles in six months” or “In six months, I want to be able to have a 5+ minute conversation in French without using Google Translate.” 

Now let’s apply this to setting social or marketing goals. Let’s assume you are setting both quantitative and qualitative goals. Heck, let’s set two of each. (Note: For the sake of simplicity, we’re going to set the goal, not the tactics.) 

Quantitative: 

1. Increase our Instagram Engagement Rate from 3% to 4% by the end of June

2. Grow our TikTok to 10,000 followers within six months

Here, we’ve set reasonable, platform-specific, measurable, time-bound goals that show forward momentum. You can build a content strategy and plan to support this. 

Qualitative: 

1. Secure one large-scale partnership with a content creator by end-of-year

2. Introduce an updated color palette and five scalable new design templates for Instagram by Q3 

Again, these are reasonable, attainable goals that ladder back to an overall strategy. They’re qualitative in that they don’t have a metrics goal, but they are measurable. 

Goals vs. Tactics

Once you’ve set your goal, the tactics are the levers you pull to achieve your goals.

Goal: Increase our Instagram Engagement Rate from 3% to 4% by the end of June

Tactics: Increase Community Management (respond to more comments); Test more interactive Story Stickers; Ship two “AMA” feed posts per week 

In order to reach your goals, you almost always must define the tactics you’ll use to get there. You can’t ski down the mountain without skis.

How to Set Realistic Goals

It’s true, selecting an arbitrary number or metric likely won’t set you up for success. 

Here’s how I might think about this: If I’m setting a goal to increase my engagement rate(s), or to grow followers by a certain percentage on a given channel, what has previous performance looked like for the past 3-6 months? Maybe for the goal you are setting you add 1-2% of that baseline and go from there!

You’re applying new tactics. You (and your marketing leaders) should not expect exponential, viral growth overnight. Sorry!

TL;DR: do not pick a number out of a hat. Use data to support your hypothesis.

But Don’t Be Afraid to Set a Few Moonshot Goals

Okay, so what I said before about SMART goals still applies here, but let’s say you want to set one Really Big Goal (sometimes referred to as a Big Hairy Audacious Goal or BHAG, but I don’t personally subscribe to this narrative). 

This is a goal whose outcome you can’t necessarily control, but one you feel passionate about. And, best of all, it helps you achieve your Big Picture Goals. You can choose whether to cordon this goal off from the others as a bonus. Up to you. 

Don’t be afraid to set at least one of these per quarter. Here are some examples: 

Example: Post one TikTok a month that hits 100,000 views organically 

Of the 3-5 TikToks per week that you already committed to posting, why not aim to have one go viral? This also opens you up to boundless creativity, in my opinion. Go big or go home, as they say. 

Example: Post one Instagram post per month that gets so many story shares that you have to scroll to see them all. 

Go for it! In my social strategies, I often include a “shareability” metric. Maybe this is the Really Big Goal that helps you envision what that metric could be for you. Or maybe you just take a screen recording and use it on the social all hands slide at the end of the month. Win-win! 

Setting Benchmarks

Setting goals is important. Setting benchmarks helps you put those goals into perspective against your long-term performance to ensure those goals are attainable and not just numbers on a page. 

Folks across our industry have lots of approaches to setting benchmarks. Ultimately I encourage you to analyze the approach that works best for you. Here are two thought starters:

6 month trailing average performance for each channel (impressions, engagements, engagement rate) 

To calculate this, use the following formula: 

(Sum of Metrics For Past 6 Months)/6

Industry-wide benchmarks (Sprout Social does a great job of compiling these)

A few people have asked me in the past whether I would take competitor performance into account when setting benchmarks. 

Here’s my “I was a camp counselor in college” advice: If you spend too much time making decisions based on what competitors are doing, nobody’s going to know what you do. In other words, keep your eyes on your own paper. Compare scores after, if you want. 

There is no “one size fits all” solution when it comes to goals or benchmarks. What might work for your team might not work for another social team creating content for another industry. We might put all the same gas in our cars, but we all take different routes. 

Tracking Goals

Once you’ve set your goals, you need to track them. While certain goals might be long-term (achieve X by end of year), it’s important to check in on progress on a regular basis and to even adjust your goals as needed. 

I suggest reporting on channel performance monthly at most. Weekly reporting may not give leadership a holistic picture of performance, and you might even end up getting dinged for it. 

For larger goals such as team growth, partnerships, product launches, and more, a quarterly cadence might fit the bill for you.

And, of course, sending out a year-end report is a great way to close the loop on any big annual goals. It’s also a great opportunity to compile all of the hard work you did the past year and add it to your personal portfolio.

If you’re tracking behind on a particular goal, don’t fret. Missing your metrics goals one month should not elicit a panic. There are a million contextual reasons why this might have happened (perhaps you paused comms due to an issue, or a product launch was pushed back). 

If you’re able to identify a pattern after three months, then you might consider scaling back your benchmarks and goals to set realistic expectations. 

On the flip side, what if you are not only meeting, but exceeding your metrics goals? Do you move the goalpost? I’d say keep your goals in place, and if you’re outpacing them after 3+ months, track a new number at the same time. It doesn’t mean you’ve set ineffective goals. It means you’re preserving the integrity of your initial hypothesis—this is especially important if your numbers return closer to benchmark later on. 

In both of these scenarios, you’re showing a willingness to adjust in what we can all agree is an ever-changing environment. I will spare you another movement-related metaphor. 

Reporting on Goals

Once you’ve defined your cadence, define your internal audience. The end-of-month report you share with your social or marketing team should not be the same format as the report you share with senior leaders. 

Your CEO does not need to know every line of your spreadsheet. What are the broad strokes? What are the big wins? The misses (and how you’re addressing them for next time)? Offer context around the broader state of social—what’s happening there that might require you to change course? What did Elon do this week? I guarantee you that the further up you go in an organization, the further removed they are from the day-to-day sea changes within social. Use this time to educate them! Plus, it’s helpful to get ahead of any questions in these reports.  

From a quantitative standpoint, be sure to include the percent change (positive or negative) that you saw in a given metric. To calculate this, use this handy website that Rachel tells me is her top visited website.

For example, your engagement rate in February was 3.5%, and your engagement rate in January was 3%. That’s a 16.7% increase (or change). Just saying. 

My last piece of advice here—nobody wants to read a 10 slide deck full of numbers. Don’t be afraid to add color and context throughout your reporting. Editorialize it to drive the energy in the room. Come up with fun subject lines to intrigue people. Remember, you are the expert, and you set the tone. Never miss a chance to show your work and to lift up others. You all deserve it!

Final Thoughts

At the end of the day, setting goals sets you up for success, and helps you drive your social craft forward. Every day you log in is another opportunity to test and learn; to see what’s working and what’s not. Goals are there to motivate you and your team. Now get out there and crush them.

Okay, Rachel here again. Do we feel ready to set some goals? Thanks again to Todd for putting together that amazing deep dive. It was so fun to work with him on it.

If you have any social media guides that you’d love to read in the coming months, please comment your ideas on this post! We already have some really fun ones in the works that I can’t wait to share.

Thanks for reading and see you next week!