6 Elements of a Social Media Success Formula

Social media success doesn’t happen by accident. There are 6 elements needed to increase the odds of achieving your marketing objectives. I’ve been guiding my clients for 20 years, creating success formulas for their organizations, collaborating with other marketing professionals to achieve goals, and teaching my students to do it too. I’m going to give you the elements so you can create your very own social media success formula.

ACTION

The first thing you need is a verb. What action do you want your audience to take?

Examples: click on a buy button, sign up using a form, donate money, or buy an event ticket.

I bet you’re tempted to say you want them to “become a follower or subscriber” but the only time that works is if you’re marketing a brand new company or starting a social media account from scratch. It’s a short-term goal because ultimately you want their action to make you money. Too often followers are only there to emotionally support you, they aren’t going to purchase, they don’t have the funds, or they have their own agenda that doesn’t align with your goals.

AMOUNT

How many people do you want to take that action?

Be specific and realistic. It might be 10 people, 500, or 15% more than last month. It needs to be a number you can actually achieve. If you have previous performance data, such as an average of how many people attend that event, use this as your baseline or benchmark.

CHANNEL

What social media channel are you focusing on?

Pick just one so we can more easily measure at the end. It’s too muddy to say “all the channels.” You’ll need to narrow your focus. You can create multiple formulas if you plan on using more than one channel but for right now, start simple.

TRAFFIC

Where are people taking the desired action?

Most social media platforms don’t have a reliable built-in location where users can sign up, buy, donate, or fill out a form. People can’t read your mind so you’re going to have to tell them what you want them to do. This is named a “call-to-action” or CTA. I recommend driving them to your website or landing page to complete the action.

Yes, your Facebook page might have a CTA button today but they regularly change the functions, features, and eligibility so that button may stop working or disappear all together. Years ago many nonprofits raised money on Facebook with the Donate button but after awhile, I began to hear from my nonprofit clients that the feature had stopped working. They didn’t know how to raise money online and were scrambling to receive donations.

It’s best to control this function and the platform where it appears. Drive them to your website or other tool you have control over rather than relying on social media to provide it for you.

TIME

When is the start and the finish of your efforts?

Determine how long this effort (sometimes called a campaign) is going to be. Choose a length of time for your campaign such as a week, a month, or a quarter. When that period is up, you’ll reflect on what did and didn’t work. Then you can adapt your tactics and adjust your approach before you try again. Note – A year is too long because social media moves fast and you’ll need to adapt quickly.

Formula Examples: 

• I want 20% more people to click on my appointment booking link in my Instagram bio by June 30th, 2026.
  • Showing the Elements – I want 20% more people (amount) to click (action) on my appointment booking link (traffic) in my Instagram bio (channel) by June 30th, 2026. (time)
• I want 50 people to sign up for my class using the URL in my LinkedIn posts by the day before the event.
  • Showing the Elements – I want 50 people (amount) to sign up for my class (action) using the URL (traffic) in my LinkedIn posts (channel) by the day before the event. (time)

MEASURE

Did you achieve what your formula states? Yes or No.

Measuring may not be in the formula itself but in order to be successful you’ll need to evaluate every element. You need to understand as much as you can about what contributed to your Yes or No answer. Look at what did and did not work, what people responded to and that which they didn’t, and what you could have done differently.

Maybe you didn’t get 50 people to sign up for your class. Maybe you got 40. Is that a failure? We don’t use the word failure in social media marketing campaigns very often because everything we do is an opportunity to learn and get better the next time we do it. There’s no automation or program that can replace your critical thought, earned knowledge, and gained experience.

Put Your Formula Into Practice

Sustainable social media success takes strategy, work, and time. With the six elements listed, you have the backbone for your very own social media strategy and the template for your own success formula. These are the tools the pros use and you can use them too.

This is a part of my Strategy Series.