Did you go into 2022 with a strategy for this year? Are you starting 2023 with a clear set of goals and a way to measure your progress and ensure you achieve these goals?

If the answer to either of these questions is no, then this article is for you.

All brands share one goal: growth, but each business’s steps to achieve this goal will look different.

Your steps could look like:

  • New product development
  • Launching your brand on a new social media platform
  • Increasing monthly sales numbers
  • Expansion into new audiences
  • Collaboration with influencers

Where are you today?

You should start your journey by answering a few questions about where your business is today. This will help you place yourself with respect to your goals, helping you know what you will need to change or improve to achieve them.

Questions you might want to ask yourself could include: 

  • What is my engagement like?
  • How many new followers have I acquired?
  • Do people buy from me more than once?
  • How many of my followers are customers?
  • Do my customers advocate for my brand?

It is worth noting that followers are a vanity metric so, instead, we ask our clients to dig a bit deeper when considering their objectives for the year. Remember: an engaged, smaller audience is far more valuable than a larger audience that neither sees nor cares about your content. 

Find your goals

Goals and outcomes that go beyond social media are possible. Bring clarity to your social media strategy by setting larger objectives today. Where do you want to go? What do you want to achieve? Set measurable goals that lead to real world outcomes – goals that go beyond social media numbers

Grab a coffee, your laptop, or a pen and a pad of paper and let’s do this together!

Check out our blog on How your brand can win at social in 2023.

Goals to consider for social media

To make things a little easier for you we’ve broken down some goals into eight different sections; brand awareness, acquiring leads, building credibility, staying relevant, influencing decisions, converting followers, retaining customers, and generating advocacy.

Keep reading to see what resonates with you and your business goals for the future. Happy growing!

1. Brand awareness

This is a great goal to start with as brand awareness is critical for brand growth. Found at the top of the Brand Growth Funnel, this goal is all about getting your brand in front of as many people as possible as many times as possible, and being recognised.

There therefore are two sides to generating brand awareness; reach and recognition.

They work in tandem: the more reach your brand has, the more you will be recognised, and the more people are able to recognise your brand, the more likely someone is to remember you and choose your brand at the point of purchase. 

Generating organic reach is harder than ever, so you must understand each channel that your brand is on, and what that platform demands for your brand to be seen. Take a look at our article on the best platforms for social media (and how to use them) for a quick refresher here! 

You may have heard about short form video dominating social media apps and these rumours are true; video is now the most effective way to gain reach on most social media platforms notably Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and TikTok.

Short form video is a brilliant medium for storytelling around your brand. Focus on a message you want to tell; do you have an amazing conception story, or a novel product that solves a common problem? Tell that story, make sure you use the individual features that appeal to each algorithm. This is different for each social media platform so check out our article on how to get the most out of each platform for more information!

Brand recognition is about having a brand that people know about, are aware of, and recognise easily is beneficial for spreading the message about new products and services, as well as just being on people’s minds more often.

Altum Media’s top tip: be bold, be different, be disruptive.

It is worth noting that for paid campaigns, reach and brand awareness objectives have a relatively low cost per acquisition (CPA) compared to campaigns with an objective lower down in the funnel, e.g., conversion/purchase.

2. Acquiring leads

Turning the reach that you have into individuals who purchase something from your brand is in the top/middle part of the Brand Growth Funnel. There are a few ways that you may go about improving the number of leads your content generates.

The first is through short form video. We’ve already discussed that short-form video is the quickest way to generate organic reach so including a question or call to action at the end of each post or video will invite viewers to engage. Asking for your audience’s opinion gives the opportunity for you to get to know the people who are seeing your content, as well as engaging with potential customers.

Altum Media top tip: Humour is key, making people laugh will get your content shared but also will make your brand feel more human. This is the best way to acquire leads because, after all, you’re talking to other human beings. 

3. Build credibility

Strengthen your relationship and consideration when it comes to customers making decisions about purchases.

Social proof is the best way to do this. Partner with influencers, publish customer testimonies, and create a publicly available bank of reviews that demonstrates your engaged, happy customers. This verifies the value and quality of your products and services, encouraging others to follow in their footsteps.

Altum Media top tip: when working with influencers or other brands, ensure that they are credible themselves and share your values.

Incentivise the customers that are already engaged. Make it easy for them to share your creative content online and advocate for you, this in turn will act as organic reach at the top of the Brand Growth Funnel.

Think about what makes you different. This is the heart of your brand and is what will talk to the heart of your customers.

4. Stay relevant

What is trending? In a constantly shifting world of social media, staying on top of trends is the best way to stick at the forefront of consumer’s minds. Think: what do people want to see? What do people want to know about? Explore trending sounds and videos on platforms like TikTok and stay up to date with Meta trends, bearing in mind. 

Altum Media’s top tip: Explore listening tools on Sprout Social, one of our partners. The data will inform your content strategies and you can also use the evidence gathered through this to convince external stakeholders to invest more money in your business.

5. Influencing decisions

This is about that all-important click through. How many of your followers click the links that you put on your content to buy your products or visit your website? How many join the mailing list from the pop-up on your website?

Some questions you might want to think about:

  • What problems do your products or services solve?
  • How can people use your product in day-to-day life?
  • How does your product appeal to different segments of your audience?

Don’t speak to your customer base in the same way on the same channel. Different strategies will appeal to different groups so make sure you are using formats that they find interesting. Paid social advertisements are a great tool to test this. Use A/B testing for this and keep an eye on your insights so you can make changes as soon as a clear preference is visible.

For deal hunters, share offers and promotions to incentivise consumers. Give out discounts for people when they sign up for email marketing, offers once they make their first purchase, free trials, or free access to a newsletter.

6. Convert followers

This is around the midsection of the Brand Growth Funnel and is about increasing your online and offline sales.

The best way that you can go about this is having a seamless journey from start to finish. Did you know the average cart abandonment rate is just below 70% (69.57%) with the top three reasons being additional costs, difficult checkout process, and requiring an account. Optimising your checkout can increase your conversion rate by 35.62% [Source: drip.com].

Social commerce is another way that you will improve your conversion rate. Make it easy for consumers to click through to your website and purchase your products however they are engaging with your content. Put links in your bio, add captions, and tag your products wherever possible.  

Altum Media top tip: don’t add too much storytelling at this stage, this is all about simplicity and getting that sale.

7. Retain customers

Customer retention is near the bottom of the Brand Growth Funnel, and it will focus on the smaller section of your customers who are loyal, consistent consumers for your brand.

Did you know it costs 80% less to keep customers than it does to acquire them. So, keep them engaged! Offer your customers early access to new products, host brand events, and tell them how much you appreciate them.

Manage your comments and messages, reply to everyone as quickly as possible. Every message represents the brand and should hold your products and services in a good light.

Gather all data that you can and use this to inform you of what is important to your customers. This can tell you what your customers are looking for in the future, what works well with your brand, and what maybe is less seamless than it should be.

Interact with your audience as much as possible; stickers, quizzes, and polls can improve this and make your customers feel seen and heard. This is key for creating a family, which is what will keep your consumers coming back again, and again, and again.

Altum Media’s top tip: respond to all complaints that you receive. Every complaint presents an opportunity for your brand to improve for all future customers. Use the chain of communication to start a conversation and build a relationship with that customer so that you can make amends and hopefully turn it around.

8. Build advocacy

This is right at the bottom of the Brand Growth Funnel, where you will have the fewest people.

To get customers that advocate for your brand you need to look after those who buy from you. Do you have a clear strategy in place for rewarding people who are consistent purchasers? If not, this may be something that you want to expand upon.

True advocates will market and sell your products for you to their own audiences who, ideally, will already be interested in your services. Because of their established connection with their own audiences, they will be so much more relatable and trustworthy, thus increasing the number of purchases they create.

The next step for you may be launching an ambassador programme to incentivise individuals to advocate for your brand. Some ideas for ambassador incentivisation:

  • Free products
  • Backstage access
  • Exclusive insight
  • New product trials

This will increase productivity and positivity on social media.

Make sure you use all insights that you gain to shape new product development to give your audience what they truly care about.

Conclusion

So how do you get brand growth? First, find out where you are failing on the funnel and go from there. Here is a quick checklist:

  1. Tell stories - put your brand first and adapt the way you present the story to benefit the algorithm
  2. Stay true to your values and what your business cares about
  3. Check in on the real world. People like to buy from people so focus on real world applications of your products and show that other people love them.
  4. TikTok is no longer optional, if you want to see brand growth, you need to have an account.
  5. Build a social media strategy, if you’re unsure about this check out our article on how to win on social in 2023 here.

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Abby Millar

Content specialist with experience in food & drink