How To Determine What Your Press Release Goals Should Be For Social Media
Press release marketing is part of a strong and well-rounded content marketing plan. Press releases can be used to achieve a number of business building goals that range from driving traffic to your email opt-in page, to generating sales for a new product, service or promotion. With all of the possibilities it can be difficult to determine what your press release goals should be. And if you’re embracing the power of press releases on social media then the waters can become even more muddied. Let’s explore how to determine what your press release goals should be for social media.
A Bottom up Approach
The first step is to take a look back at your business plan. What are your business goals for the year? How have you broken those goals down into smaller steps, and what are you doing this quarter to achieve your business goals? For example, your business goals may be to become the most well-known brand in your industry. That’s a broad scope goal and perhaps you’ve broken it down to measurable goals like to increase brand engagement by 5 percent this quarter.
Sales and Marketing Goals
The next step is to look at your sales and marketing goals. They’re ideally created to support and align with your business goals. So if your goal is to increase brand engagement, then you may have decided to use event marketing and social media marketing as a means to both create engagement and to readily track and measure it. You might create a goal of increasing Facebook followers by 10% this quarter or to increase shares per post.
Press Release Goals and Social Media Goals
As you review the goals for each marketing tactic in your marketing plan you’ll want to align your press release goals with your social media goals. Keep in mind that your social media goals at this point reflect your sales and marketing goals as well as your business goals. It’s all connected, or at least it should be.
Common social media goals include increasing:
- Shares
- Likes
- Website traffic
- Brand recognition
- Visitor loyalty
- Conversion rates
Press releases can be an effective part of any of these social media goals. For example, continuing with the increasing Facebook followers you could create a promotion to reward new followers with a sweepstakes entry, information product, or coupon code. Use a press release to announce the Facebook promotion and to drive traffic to your Facebook page.
The bottom line is that to create effective press release goals for your social media activity, you want to align the goals with your top level business goals. Press releases can be a useful way to creatively achieve your marketing and business goals. Get creative. Identify the hook, and start promoting.
