In my presentations, I like to emphasize the importance of setting goals when implementing social media into a business plan. Have you set goals for your company’s social media strategy plan for 2011? The year has just begun and it’s not too late to map out your strategy goals. What is it that you want to accomplish using social media? How will you measure your accomplishments? Here are a few tips and suggestions on what to aim for this year!

1. Identify Your Goals

First, you want to identify what it is you want to accomplish. You should make a list of each social media networking site you use and decide what it is you want to accomplish using each network.

For Twitter, maybe your goal is to attract a certain number of followers or increase your follower by a certain percentage. Another possible goal would be for your 140 character Tweets to be so valuable that you get a certain number of ReTweets. Make sure you Tweet regularly and Tweet interesting comments/articles/facts. You don’t want to be the ‘spammy’ Tweeter.

For your Facebook account, similar to your Twitter goals, you want to up your fan count by 50%, or whatever you think is an appropriate bar to set. Facebook also has great features that allows you to track the activity on your page – this way you can see if the content your posting is engaging your market.

On your YouTube channel, you could set a goal of uploading a certain number of videos per month. Or you could set a goal of how many views you want for each of your videos. Identify what kinds of content you want to post and try to increase your followers with your engaging content. YouTube videos can also be integrated into your other social network accounts as well.

For your LinkedIn profile, set a goal for how many connections you make per month. Contributing to conversations on LinkedIn is also a valuable feature for this network so make a point of getting involved in the buzz. Finding connections in groups is another aspect of LinkedIn that you could include in your social media goals.

Whatever your goals might be, make them challenging, yet attainable. Be as specific as possible so you know exactly what your looking for in your results. You can always adjust this list along the way!

2. Plan of Action

What are you going to do that will make you achieve these goals? Decide how often you want to post on each site and where. Spending a few hours a week on your social networking sites will help build your social media presence and more activity will drive more traffic to your pages. Brainstorm a list of topics you think people would be interested in that you can talk about on your sites. Also, make a point of checking in on discussion groups on Facebook and LinkedIn. In giving valuable input, you are presenting yourself as a qualified and knowledgable contributor that could ultimately drive traffic to your page. Just remember to avoid being too ‘spammy’ and blatantly promote yourself- no one likes a spammer.

3. Ready, Aim, FIRE!

Put your plans into action. And stick to your plan! Keep yourself on schedule with your plan and you will see results! Decide on how often you are going to check in on your social media sites and what results you are looking for – new fans, followers, active conversation or views. The great thing about social media networks is that they provide you with immediate feedback so you know whether or not your plan is working. If not, adjust your tactics and try again!