We’ve taken a look at the safe approach to setting Facebook goals. Now, it’s time to discuss letting the tiger out. Let’s sharpen our claws, stretch our muscles, and prepare for battle. Getting aggressive on Facebook is about going to social media war.

Keep in mind that the majority of businesses should stay with the safe goals rather than getting aggressive. They can be extremely effective for maintaining a viable Facebook presence without spending too much time on strategy, planning posts, and creating dialogues on Facebook. If you are going to set aggressive goals, your strategies are going to take time and money to make them happen.

It’s not for everyone but it might be for you. Here are some examples of aggressive Facebook goals.

Goal: Drive Traffic to the Website

This is one of the first things that come to mind when thinking of goals for Facebook. Most realize that it is known as a good traffic generation tool in general and they believe they’ll be able to do the same for their site.

Unfortunately, the standard practices used to drive traffic “in general” do not apply to most business websites. “In general”, Facebook is good at driving traffic to viral content. People do not go to Facebook to find links to inventory items. They go there to see pictures of little Timmy sliding into third base. They can get swayed into clicking on links with controversial titles or intriguing thumbnails, but again that’s not normally something associated with sites that are designed to generate leads or sales.

The only way to drive traffic to your website is by starting with strong content on the website itself. We’ve discussed using your website as your content hub and why it’s so important to have the type of content on your website for both social and search purposes that resonates with your overall target audience. Now, you’ll have to really apply these principles to make this Facebook goal achievable.

The starting point with a goal like this is to sculpt the appropriate fans. This cannot be stressed enough. If you have too few total fans or too many low-quality fans, you’ll want to fix that first before trying to drive traffic to you website. In many ways, driving traffic to your website from Facebook is about establishing trust within your community by posting only the absolute best content possible. Anything short of amazing simply won’t do.

Once you have that trust established by posting images and text that resonate and generate interactions, you can start posting quality content from your website directly to Facebook. If you’re a Dodge dealer, you could post a story like “The 5 Most Searched Dodge Chargers in History“. Assuming that your fans are strong, this will be the type of content that exceeds their expectations when they liked your page in the first place.

It’s supremely important to remember that this type of content must be promoted through Facebook ads. Even the most prolific Facebook pages by the most loved brands are not getting the type of traffic they could get from Facebook when they don’t advertise. Thankfully, if your fans are high-quality and you have a history of posting high value content on your pages, you won’t have to spend a ton to get a good amount of traffic. It’s not targeted traffic – visitors to the site may or may not be looking for a Dodge Charger at the time – so this strategy is best applied if you have retargeting campaigns working or if you’re using Facebook to help drive traffic for social signals purposes to help with SEO.

This is not, however, a way to generate a ton of leads or sales. We’ll discuss that goal shortly.

Goal: Dramatically Improve the Brand Footprint

Facebook may be a challenging venue through which to drive leads and sales via website traffic, but it’s the ultimate venue through which to improve your brand footprint. This goal is arguably the easiest to achieve of the aggressive goals but there’s a very time-consuming set of strategies behind it to make it truly successful.

With this goal, you’re trying to get your name and logo in front of as many prospect eyeballs as possible and as often as possible. To do this, you can employ a handful of different strategies. One strategy that you should never, ever employ is to take other people’s images and slap your logo on top of it. If you do this, you’re risking a brand disaster. I’m not going to dwell on the reasons behind it. I’ll just implore you to stop immediately if you’re doing it.

What you should be doing is taking pictures at your store. Every picture should be interesting and ever picture should include your logo as part of the image, not added after the fact. If you’re a Dodge dealer, you should be taking great pics of amazing Chrysler vehicles with your logo either in the background on a sign or on the license plate clearly visible.

That’s a very small strategy component if your goal is branding. The bigger and more time-consuming component is to go out into the Facebook world and start interacting where your potential customers are. That means getting chatty on the local newspaper Facebook page, offering help and support on local charity Facebook pages, talking about how great the BBQ is at Stan’s Restaurant around the corner, etc.

One thing to keep at the top of your mind when doing this – stay sincere and transparent. It isn’t just about getting your company name on the comment or share list. It’s about making an impact with your comments. It’s about helping others because you want to help others and not just to get your company name listed.

People are smart. They can tell when you’re not being sincere. This is why this goal is one of the most time-consuming. It requires a massive amount of genuine activity. It can’t be faked. You can’t skip a few days. If you go this route and your goal is to make your brand stand out ahead of the competition, you must be willing to commit.* * *I’ve been told to try to limit my 1000-word posts and I only made it through the first two aggressive goals before hitting the mark, so tomorrow I’ll discuss the next two aggressive goals: communication hub and foot traffic. Until then, think about what you really want to do with your Facebook page. Stay focused. Stay diligent. Facebook can be a wonderful marketing tool if used properly.