What is Your Business’ Social Media Resolution for Year 2011?

by    |   23rd Dec 10 2:34 am   |   7
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Social Media Resolution e1293096289442 What is Your Business Social Media Resolution for Year 2011?With the holiday season already here, it’s time to bid adieu to the year 2010 and embrace the New Year with open arms. And the onset of the New Year inevitably marks the time to make resolutions. And it’s not just individuals; businesses too have their fair share of resolutions to make at the beginning of New Year.

From a business perspective, it’s time to reflect back on the year gone by – what went well, what went wrong, what could have been better, what should have been avoided and a plethora of other things. It’s also the time for retrospection on your social media efforts for 2010 and plan your social media strategy for 2011.

Though I’m not a believer in making resolutions on the personal front, I always take the New Year as an opportunity to set my business/ social media agenda for the next twelve months. Here’s my list of social media resolutions for year 2011 and I’m sure many businesses will relate to these.

Commitment

I often say that social media isn’t a shortcut to success. To boost your business through social media, you need to be committed. Social media is worth the time and money you invest, only if you are prepared to give your 100% effort. There are turbulent times when things don’t quiet go as per your social media plan, but as a business you need to be patient, look at the broader picture and re-affirm your faith in social media.

Innovate

Social media thrives on dynamism. A social media strategy that worked perfectly for your business in 2010 may actually be a perfect recipe for disaster in the New Year. As a business, you constantly need to innovate and re-invent yourself in the social media world. Be it your business Facebook Fan Page, Twitter Profile or tweets, add a degree of innovation in order to get out of that “routine” mode. Innovation comes at a cost, but considering the returns on hand, it’s well worth the investment.

Collaboration

Social media is all about being “social”. You can’t be confined to a silo and hope to be successful in the social media world. From a business perspective, you need to collaborate with partners, clients and some times even competitors in the social networking world. Humans are social animals and businesses after all cater to human needs. Don’t be shy to collaborate with others on new opportunities in the social media space. Some opportunities never strike twice!

Balance

Social media can often be an overwhelming proposition for businesses. They get on to the Facebook and Twitter bandwagon and are so obsessed with their newly found social media presence, that they tend to forget if they are actually “successful” or not. I’ve often come across businesses which spend so much effort on their social media presence, that day to day business operations take a back seat. While it’s good to be impressed with social media, being obsessed with social media is highly risky from a business perspective!

Measure

The New Year presents a good opportunity to measure the success of your social media efforts till date, take corrective action if necessary and then go all out with your revised social media regime. Set milestones and measure your progress periodically to see if your social media efforts are on track.

What are your business’ social media resolutions for the year 2011? Please share your opinion by leaving a comment below this post.

Douglas Idugboe, Digital and New Media Marketing Strategist. Founder and Chief Editor of Smedio! A Canadian Bestselling Author, Marketing Strategist, Speaker and Trainer, Who Loves Technology
  • @Kanemurphy

    To beat ALL competitors on ALL platforms!

  • http://blog.esimplestudios.com Gabriele Maidecchi

    Collaboration is definitely one field in which I want to improve in the next several months, especially involving as many people in my company as possible in the social media efforts I am overseeing.
    I think it’s a fundamental thing to do for every business working on a social media strategy, and I feel like it’s one aspect I didn’t explore as much as I should, so far.

  • http://twitter.com/shermanunkefer Sherman Unkefer

    I have noticed that dealing with social media takes a lot of time and patience as you seem to say. One thing I’d like to add is that learning the ropes is the largest of the uphill battles. Once you’ve figured that out adding to your social media portfolio becomes so much easier.

  • http://www.glenwoodfin.com Glen Woodfin

    I think it’s best to be involved with as much social media as you can take care of like a garden. For example, I’ve got 45,000 followers on Twitter, but I see that I tend to use it as a broadcasting system more and more, thus diminishing the site’s potential. It’s much better to use it as a relationship platform.

  • Pingback: The Best of Year 2010 - Social Media Highlights of the Year | Smedio | The New Media and Social Web Guide for Business and Marketers

  • http://www.whyyoushouldtravel.com A Byrd

    Thank you for this great article Smedio. I agree with your points here and most importantly collaborating with others which sometimes means your very own competitors. From my short experience with using Social Media as a platform to promoting my business I have learned that it’s time consuming indeed and have found ways to allocate time to set just for Twitter, FB, Linkedn…etc. So far so good but one key important thing is having a keen strategy in targeting your niche market. That’s the great thing about Social Media is that you don’t have to please the masses if in fact you have a particular area of interest in your networking. I’m glad mine is Travel and I don’t know when the last time I had a conversation with someone about travel and they responded back to me and said….I hate to talk about or do that. It’s not a $7 trillion biz for nothing.

  • Kidderupdates

    I just stumbled on this post. I loved reading your resolutions…