5 Social Media New Year’s Resolutions that You Should Stick To

What you've undoubtedly come to realize over the past couple of years is that, when it comes to your business, making use of social media is an asset.  To what degree that’s true depends entirely on how much you've been thinking about and how much effort you've been putting into your social media marketing strategies.

Want to step it up a notch or two in 2013?  Here are a few tips that you can use as your Social Media New Year’s Resolutions:

1.  Vow to Post on a Regular Basis – I know it can seem daunting sometimes, with everything you have to do in your busy life, but, in order for your social media strategies to gain traction, it’s important to post on a regular basis.  If people are checking in and seeing the same, stale stuff that’s been sitting there for a month, they’re not going to be returning to your sites any time soon!

2. Make it a Point to be More Interesting & Innovative – Again, I know you’re in a time crunch, but it’s worth it to take a few moments every couple of days to do some research to come up with interesting and innovative content to post.  You don’t want to bore your followers to death. Check out industry newsletters, online news sites and entertainment sites. You'll find a whole wealth of information that you can comment on, respond to and link to.

3. Take Full Advantage of Social Media’s “Humanizing” Factor – Social media is a great way to humanize your brand or business.  People buy from people.  People use services that other people offer.  Your social media efforts should be targeted at making you and your business more personable, rather than at peddling your wares with ‘in your face’ marketing pushes.  On social media, be social!  Entertain & engage, and let people ‘like’ you.  Post content that will resonate with your audience.  The rest will follow!  Remember, it’s about the relationship, not the broadcast.

4. Monitor Your Efforts – If you’re not monitoring your social media endeavors, how will you know what’s working and what isn't?  You need to know what’s going on to respond and engage in conversations or manage a crisis. Tools from simple monitoring to social CRM and customer support will help you find new opportunities to engage consumers.  Social media monitoring tools combined with business metrics will lead to better understanding of the value of social interaction. 

5. Update Your Profiles – It has probably been awhile since you created your social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.).  When was the last time you reviewed each profile to ensure that all your information is updated and current?  It might be a little early in the year for a Spring cleaning, but why not just call it a New Year Makeover?  Go over each of your profiles to ensure that everything is current – all contact information, photos, etc.  Go through your Facebook ‘friends’ list and clean house.  Ensure that you’re following all the right people on Twitter.  A little freshening up can go a long way!