Social Media Goal Setting & Analytics

Different social media platforms will appeal to different audiences. Consider setting goals for your post content based on the social media platform and the different audiences you’re trying to reach.

Questions to Explore

  • What are you trying to achieve and why (goals and impacts)?
  • Who are you trying to reach (audience)?
  • What do you want people to do (e.g., increase engagement, awareness)?
  • Do you have any specific calls to action (e.g., register, sign up for more information)?

Goal Setting Example

College of Arts & Letters Instagram Goals

  • Promote a sense of belonging and affinity to support MSU community success and well-being.
  • Show different experiential learning opportunities to support awareness of professional experiences available to students.
  • Show a variety of student and graduate perspectives to ensure students and prospective students can see themselves at MSU and in the College of Arts & Letters.
  • Highlight faculty and their areas of scholarship, research, and creative works to support the reputation of the College of Arts & Letters.

College of Arts & Letters Instagram Audiences

  • Current and Prospective Students: MSU and College of Arts & Letters (primary audience)
  • Alumni: MSU and College of Arts & Letters (secondary audience)
  • Current and Prospective Faculty: MSU and College of Arts & Letters (secondary audience)
The MSU College of Arts & Letters Instagram account page and post grid. It includes information like 1,327 posts, 4,127 followers, 2,580 accounts following. The @MSUCAL description says: "Educating & inspiring actors, artists, designers, filmmakers, linguists, philosophers, poets, teachers, translators & writers. #SpartansWill. Linton Hall, East Lansing, Michigan 48823 cal.msu.edu." The gird of nine blocks shows images of students, alumni, faculty, and campus artwork.

Engagement & Calls to Action

The college-level Instagram account is used to increase awareness and affinity of the College of Arts & Letters that includes students, prospective students, alumni, faculty, and staff. It is also used to share stories and increase awareness of student learning experiences, programs, student life, and faculty research.

The College of Arts & Letters wants people to:

  • Engage with our Instagram content through likes, views, reposts, comments, and direct messages.
  • Better understand the opportunities available to students at MSU and in the College of Arts & Letters.
  • Feel connected with the MSU and College of Arts & Letters communities.
  • See themselves in the different stories, voices, and people we feature in our Instagram content.

To facilitate these actions from our audiences on Instagram, the Marketing & Communications Team:

  • Encourages engagement through account interaction (comments, likes, DMs) on Instagram.
  • Tags relevant accounts with posts and Reels to increase awareness and reach.
  • Seeks new followers and new people to follow from the Instagram account, especially students and prospective students.
  • Responds to comments and direct messages.
  • Shares and cross-promotes other accounts via Stories content.

Analytics & Insights

Each social media platform offers a set of analytics natively within your managed account. To start, we recommend tracking post reach and engagement/impressions to help gauge the effectiveness of your posts. Setting specific goals for your social media platforms and messages can also help you determine what makes sense to measure in terms of analytics.

Instagram insights for a post on the College of Arts & Letters Instagram account. The post on the left is a photo of a group of students who are part of an Education Abroad trip holding a flag with a Spartan helmet. To the right is a box that lists views reached by the post. The total views are 3,672 that includes 54% followers and 46% non-followers. Of those views, 3,360 were from Instagram users home feed, 157 were from the @MSUCAL profile, and 37 were from other. The total interactions for the post are 263 with 91% of the engagement coming from followers and 8.6% of the engagement coming from non-followers. Of those 263 interactions, 256 were likes.
Example of Instagram insights from a specific @MSUCAL Instagram post.

If you are interested in a more in-depth look at your social media account analytics, there are separate social media management tools like Buffer, Hootsuite, and Sprinklr. With a social media management tool, you are also able to schedule content, manage all of your accounts, and track your engagement and interactions all in one place. 

Michigan State University uses Sprinklr to help schedule and post content, as well as for social media reporting and analytics. The College of Arts & Letters pays for a seat in the institutional Sprinklr account and uses it mainly for college-level social analytics.