Yet, I am discouraged by some of the tactics marketers have used this 2010 (and prior) to gain people’s attention, even if it meant risking the loss of their community’s attention as a result. Such efforts make those brands appear desperate for comments, clicks, and cash. We all can do a better job in some particular area, including myself, of being good social media citizens.

Let’s toast to a better social media year in 2011.

Here are some possible New Year’s Social Media Resolutions for 2011 that we could adopt:

10. Don’t send Twitter RT’s that don’t have substance. I don’t need a “thanks for following me.” I really don’t need a link to your blog, either. I can find it myself if I am inclined.

9. Don’t wonder why you’re not getting a following if you aren’t linking to your social profiles from your other online entities.

8. Don’t stoop to contests to get attention. Most people will turn their attention elsewhere when the contest ends. An occasional contest is fine, but not as a routine practice.

7. Don’t leave your photo off your LinkedIn profile. It may seem like a minor thing, but a photo does make you appear more personable and approachable.

6. Don’t start social networking without a plan. Decide who your audience is, and what type of content they will value. Stick with it, even if the community-building is slow.

5. Don’t be predictable. If you post about the same topic over and over, people will just gloss over you. Wouldn’t you do the same if you were them?

4. Don’t be self-serving. If your community sees that everything you do is to promote your business, they’ll leave you. Be an information resource for your industry; you can toss in the occasional offer or promotion, but only occasionally.

3. Don’t push me into a corner by making me unsubscribe from all of your emails. Maybe I just want them less frequently – but you wouldn’t know, because my only choice is to unsubscribe completely.

2. Don’t give up. If you don’t think your community is growing quickly, don’t blame the community for failing to adopt you. Look in the mirror, change things up, put yourself in the shoes of your target audience and ask what’s missing, what content niche you could serve.

1. Don’t treat your social media community as a commodity. You may be able to replace the quantities of people that follow you, but you can not replace the individuality of each of your followers. The best kind of social community is the kind that not only teaches you about their needs regarding your brand, but also helps each other – at the individual to individual level – to both advocate for your brand as well as provide consumer-focused recommendations, insights, and irreplaceable tips. Your social profiles should be hubs of information.

Value: If the content you are posting is not of value to your community, then it’s not worth posting at all. Likely, if it doesn’t have value to your community, it’s probably something only YOU care about. The content doesn’t have to have an impact on everyone in your community, but definitely for a large portion. Be educational, be insightful, share insider tips, and provide exclusive content that only your community can access.

Varied: Change up your content all the time. Putting out the same type of content, like special offers or posts about only one subject, will make you predictable and boring. It just takes some consideration of what your community really wants to know, and asking why they are following or liking you. Did you promise content that you aren’t delivering? There’s a good chance you have content in your arsenal that you haven’t considered posting. You can even come up with weekly posts around the same subject, like Tuesday Tips for Teeth (if you’re a dentist).

Viral: Does your content have good potential to be spread out beyond your community? Ideally, there are friends and followers of the people in your community who haven’t discovered you, and that viral content can catch their attention if shared by members of your community. It just needs to have  the legs to move 2, 3, 4 degrees out beyond your peeps. Videos are great viral content, as are how-to’s and special offers to community members. I will caution you not to be focused on making ALL of your content viral. Doing so will cause your content to lean too far to the promotional angle, which is okay in small doses, but not constantly.

Most of all, as social content managers, you want to share your expertise, information, and tips from which you have a unique perspective to share. You want your community to always be paying attention, and to do so you need those followers and fans to expect value, to see varied topics and content, and to see occasional posts that your community members can share with their friends in order to share that value.

Why Social Media? a plea to those still unconvinced

I made the case (I hope) that traditional, offline business networking is great, and I take nothing away from that activity. But how do you supplement that networking in between conferences, seminars and trade shows? If you only network a few times a year, how do you expect to really build the kind of professional connections that will help you, as a business person, and your company? Collecting a few business cards and coming back to the office satisfied with the outcome just doesn’t seem realistic to me. Maybe 10, 20 years ago, but not in this era of so many online networking tools available to us.

Take a look at the slides I linked to above, and let me know what you think. Is this approach a strong way to help social networking non-believers get over that doubt that online networking should play a part in their professional lives?

To that criticism, I would first say that perhaps those who suffer from social overload do not yet have a clearly-defined objective in their social media program. Perhaps they don’t have a “program” at all, but instead dabble in a few tweets a week or post and respond to interesting things on Facebook. That, my friends, may be where the gaping hole exists… between you and your targeted community of followers and friends who are your potential buyers and brand advocates.

Have you ever considered launching a direct mail campaign with no clear objective, just sending out random postcards in hopes you hit one person who may be interested in what you’re selling? Probably not. I would pose a similar question to you about your social media activity. Why do you only participate just enough to wave your little flag and say, “Yeah, I am here, but I have nothing important to say, so I’ll be back next week and maybe I’ll have something to say then.” In no other marketing you do for your company would that “fly”… would it?

So, I’ll save the more in-depth discussion of how to get started with a social media program for a future post, but for today, give your social media activity some real thought before you toss it aside as something only to do when you have downtime. I started this post by pointing to the frequent criticism that there’s too much “fluff” going on in social networking to pay attention for the content that does matter to you. Well, I suppose if you are not providing interesting, relevant content yourself, how can you complain?

I’ve worked in marketing for almost a decade, touching nearly all facets of the field. I’ve also worked two very different industries: aviation and publishing. And although the publishing company was far more welcoming of the idea of using social media to promote their products and engage their audiences, I would have loved to challenge the aviation company to let me take the reigns of their social marketing. But, alas, they still have the same website design that I directed for them over 5 years ago, so let’s just say they have other priorities in front of them.  What I’m driving at here is that any company in any industry should be able to find a use for social networking to enhance their online marketing activity, conduct some market research, or at the very least put up a Facebook Page and post some updates on a weekly basis.

As proof, I’ll take a few random industries as examples here to propose some practical examples of how social media could be used:

Health Care: A perfect use of social media in the health care field is consumer research. If you could put a blank canvas out to the world and ask your consumers what they think about your service, wouldn’t that be valuable information to you? Although it can be scary to hear negative feedback, taking it constructively to make improvements to your business is a great opportunity to improve your brand image and show your consumers that you care what they think. Plus, it’s A LOT cheaper than focus groups!

Manufacturing: If you manufacture products, either in the B2B or B2C sectors, you can find a place in social media. Don’t you want more customers to buy your products or use you as their sole provider of the product you create? Well, those same customers are spending a ton of time on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, so why aren’t you? Refusing to be where your customers are is a little like refusing to go to a trade show where you know all of your customers and potential customers will be. Kinda silly, huh? Give Twitter a try: create an profile with a name recognizable to your customers, and post daily insights about your company, some breaking news, words from your CEO, and start following people who are in your same industry. Just showing that you are engaged in the greater community, and not just a name, infuses some personality into your brand, and as we all know, we are more likely to buy from (and like) someone we can relate to.

Waste Removal: Ha ha, I’m not sure what made me think of this one, and I know it is far out there, but play along with me for a moment. No one likes to think of waste, and no one expects a waste removal company to be anything but a bunch of gruff guys who get rid of what we don’t want. So, buck that image and poke some fun at yourself. Create a Facebook Page, post daily updates on the weird items you discover on the sides of roads or in dumpsters. Invite your fans to share their own stories of clutter removal. What does this do for your company? Yeah, it’s not going to win a ton of business, but it turns you from a company that simply picks up garbage to humans who shares a sarcastic sort of “love” for what they do and cares about their customers have to say.

That last example, of course, was an extreme case, but hopefully you’ll re-think your decision to stay away from social media. There really is a place for you here! Just be creative, and as long as you don’t do anything to hurt your brand, you’ll come away with some good consumer feedback, maybe gain some new customers, and best of all, it’s free marketing!

P.S. Can you think of an industry that CAN’T use social media? Leave a comment here, and I’ll take on your challenge and attempt to prove you wrong.

P.S.S. Another blogger posted some cool charts to show the adoption of social media across different industries: http://masterthenewnet.com/how-small-businesses-leaders-use-social-media

I’ve come up with these important practices that businesses should follow to maintain and grow their social networks:

1. Be Transparent: On your Facebook Page and in your Tweets, don’t be afraid to share information about your company, people, products and services that you think your fans, followers, and observers would like to know about. Treating your social networking like a window into your business that you might not share on your website or other marketing channels provides your customers a level of insight that they will appreciate. Most of all, transparency makes you HUMAN, not a cold, corporate name that is un-relatable.
2. Be Frequent: It looks really bad when you post a tweet or update Facebook once a month or less. Your fans and followers will appreciate frequent (at least every other day) updates if they are INTERESTING and NEWSWORTHY. Quality will always outlast Quantity, so as long as you are immersed in the goings-on of your business, and news related to your business field, then it will be easy for you to tweet and post interesting updates on a semi-daily basis. If you can’t do this, then you need to re-evaluate your mission on the social networks and consider opening up the topics you are comfortable discussing, and more importantly, re-evaluate what your customers are interested in.
3. Be Multi-Faceted: Please don’t just post or tweet articles you find on the Web, or just share clever observations. Variety is the key. Try integrating your blog into your Facebook Page. Try adding Flickr and a Twitter feed to your Facebook Page. Try a daily update on Twitter of what you’re seeing happening in your business field. Most of all, be multi-faceted in what you share. Only 30% of what you share on the social networks should be about YOU! The other 70% should be about topics that relate to your products and services — information and resources that your customers and prospects would find useful. Example: If I have a Facebook Page about my golf products business, only 30% of the time should I post photos and links to my golf store and announce special prices or new products. The other 70% should encompass golf news, insider news on the sport that may be posted elsewhere but would be intriguing to those who follow golf, etc.

The main point I’m making here is: Be a member of your community. If you become a trusted resource and member of your community, when you do decide to directly mention or sell your products and services, your community will be far more open to buying.Up

You can see some of the results, both good and bad, but always beneficial in knowing what your current brand perception and customer feedback is at any given time. SocialMention.com also gives a read of the type of mentions, which they call Sentiment, the Keywords that frequently appear in the mentions, and some percentages of Strength, Passion, and Reach. SocialMention.com even lets you set up email alerts for the names you wish to track, so that you don’t have to visit the site at all — just open the alerts in your email each morning. Give it a try!