How To Achieve Your Social Media Resolutions In 2011

What are your social media resolutions for 2011? Do you want to get more followers on Twitter or more fans on Facebook? Do you want to start a blog or start uploading videos to YouTube? Whatever your social media goals are for 2011, we want to help you achieve them! Read on to find out about how some of the most common social media goals and tips to help you achieve them in 2011. Step 1: Set Your Goals Grab a pen and notebook and write down your social media goals for 2011. By social media goals I mean your goals for Twitter, Facebook, blogging, online video and other social media outlets. Try to be specific - if you want to start blogging, how many days a week do you want to blog? If you want to get more followers on Twitter, how many followers do you want to get? The more specific your goals are, the better equipped you will be to achieve them. And remember that your goals can always shift and change along the way. Nothing is set in stone. Step 2: Come Up With A Plan For Achieving Your Goals Now that you know what your goals are you need to come up with a plan for what steps you will need to take to achieve them. To help you out, we've come up with a basic plan of action for achieving some of the most common social media resolutions and goals. You can use these basic plans to make up your own, which could be made up of a list of possible topics you'd like to write about, a schedule of when you are going to work on your goals, or a plan for how you will promote yourself. Get More Followers On Twitter A lot of people just sit back doing nothing besides tweeting about the mundane details of their lives and wonder why they aren't getting more followers on Twitter. Understand that it isn't easy to get people to follow you, you've got to take action! Here are some steps you should take in 2011 in order to get more Twitter followers: 1. Obviously, if you don't already have a Twitter account you'll have to open one. 2. Tweet regularly. If you go for weeks at a time without tweeting then your number of followers will remain stagnant. If you are tweeting regularly then people will follow you as you tweet about key terms that they are searching for and are interested in too. 3. Tweet about interesting stuff. Tweet links to cool articles you've read, ask questions and share cool ideas. Nobody cares that you ate #tuna for lunch, but if you can share a really great tuna salad recipe you've got something going there. 4. Start a conversation. Find people who are tweeting about stuff that interests you and send them an @reply. Share a post from a blogger that you like and be sure to include a @mention of the blogger's Twitter account in your tweet so they know you are out there and are sharing their stuff. 5. Don't be a spammer! Starting a conversation really means starting a conversation. Ask a question or respond to someone else's tweet with something really worthwhile. Not just a simple "Hi! Read my blog!" or "Click here for a free iPad!!" 6. Link to your Twitter account from your other social networks, blogs and websites. Again, it takes time, but if you put these steps into action you'll definitely see an increase in followers in 2011. Get More Fans On Facebook This one is sort of similar to getting more followers on Twitter. 1. Of course, if you don't already have a business or fan page on Facebook you'll have to open one. Fill out the description and all the other information as fully as possible and for goodness sake, make it sound interesting! 2. Post content daily that is interesting and relevant to the topic of your business or fan page. You can post videos, blog posts, announcements and more. If you do this, people will share the content on their own walls, promoting you to their friends. 3. Start a conversation with the people on your page. Ask questions, respond to comments. You want your fans to feel like they are a part of something when they are on your page. Not just that it was a random page that they clicked "Like" on and then never looked at again. 4. Send out periodic messages to all the fans of your page letting them know about new and exciting things that are going on with you or your company. Just don't message too often. You don't want people to unlike you because you are spamming. 5. Promote a fun contest on your fan page. More people will join when there is a cool prize at stake or something fun to be a part of. 6. Link to your Facebook account from your other social networks, blogs and websites. Start A Blog The resolution to start a blog is a pretty simple one. However, it is one that takes a lot of persistence and self-motivation. I know so many people (myself included) that have started blogs, written in them every day, told everyone about them and been incredibly excited only to drop their project all together at the end of a few weeks. So here are my tips for you if your resolution is to start a blog: 1. Choose a subject you are passionate about. Don't write about something you aren't that interested in just because you think it would be popular. If you are really gung ho about something then you will want to write about it and there are always other people out there who are gung ho about it too and will want to read about it. 2. Decide how many times you would like to blog each week and stick to it. Be reasonable. If you don't really think that you can write in your blog every day that's fine. Say you'll write twice a week or three times a week. If you wind up being able to write more that's great! Write out a schedule of the days of the week you will blog on and make the time for it on those days. 3. Get your blog set up in WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr or whichever platform you are using. Choose a template that fits your theme and that you like. Choose a great title and design a special banner if you are so inclined. 4. Promote your blog. Share it with your friends on Facebook and Twitter. Get to know people who blog about similar subjects. It's no fun to blog if nobody is reading your writing, but if you promote you will start getting comments and open up a conversation in your niche. When this happens you will be excited to write and share your new posts. 5. Research and learn new things. You are probably going to be writing about something that you already know about, but broaden your knowledge of the subject by reading up on new areas, talking to experts and reading other blogs. You can then share your findings on your own blog. 6. Have fun with it! If you feel like it's a chore to write in your blog then you are probably writing about the wrong thing. Start A YouTube Channel Starting a YouTube Channel is sort of similar to starting a blog. The difference is that you'll be making videos instead of writing. However, many of the steps are the same: 1. Choose a subject you are passionate about. It will be hard to get yourself to make videos on a regular basis if you aren't passionate about the subject, and nobody will want to watch if you aren't passionate. What makes a video blogger or online video producer good is passion - your love for the topic comes through in your work. 2. Decide how many videos you would like to put out each week or each month. A couple of years ago I decided I was going to make a video every day for an entire day. On the sixth day a robber broke into my house and stole my computer, along with 15 videos that I had queued up for the next 15 days (I started a little early to make sure I didn't wind up in a bind). However, the truth of the matter was that the robbery was sort of a good excuse for me to stop. How did I think it would have been possible for me to make a video every single day for 365 days? Set reasonable goals, keeping in mind that it can take a lot longer to make a video than write a blog post, depending upon what your intentions are. 3. Decide on a time limit for your videos. I would recommend setting a time limit of two to three minutes. YouTube recently lifted the upload time limit for most users, meaning you could upload a really long video if you wanted. However, it not only takes more time to make long videos but viewers aren't really willing to sit through them. 4. Open up a YouTube account and start making videos! When you open your account choose a name that matches your subject matter and customize your channel page, if you are so inclined. 5. Promote your videos not only on Twitter and Facebook but also on YouTube itself. We've written a couple of posts on maximizing your views and promoting yourself on YouTube. You can read them here and here. 6. Stick with it. Understand that it may take time before people start to watch your videos. You may get some not-so-nice comments, but just brush them off. People write ridiculously mean stuff on my videos sometimes and at first I was bummed out. But then I thought, at least I'm doing something creative! These people are just sitting around, watching videos all day and trying to make the creators feel bad about themselves. When you start getting views it's a really rewarding feeling, so if you push through you'll be happy you stuck with it. Step 3: Put Your Plan Into Action Now is the time to get started. Once you know what you want to do, how you are going to go about it and how you are going to promote yourself it's time to get to work. The main thing to keep in mind is not to give up. It may not be easy and sometimes you will feel like you just want to give up, but if you stick with it you will be so happy, come 2012, when you see all you have accomplished in 2011. Did we cover your social media resolution in this post? If not, let us know what yours is in the comments. What are you going to do to achieve your social media resolutions this year?

Social Pro Daily

How To Achieve Your Social Media Resolutions In 2011

Whatever your social media goals are for 2011, we want to help you achieve them! Read on to find out about how some of the most common social media goals and tips to help you achieve them in 2011.

Step 1: Set Your Goals

Megan O'Neill

About

Subscriptions

Events

Publications

Step 1: Set Your Goals

WORK SMARTER - LEARN, GROW AND BE INSPIRED.

Subscribe today!

Megan O'Neill