Another Year Comes To An End. . .

We have made it to the middle of December – 2011 if you can believe it! It is that time of the year; our focus tends to drift toward the holiday season and spending time with family and friends. I am not much into making “New Year’s Resolutions,” but it is a good time for reflection on the year behind us – and how to make next year even better…

Here at the office of Pro-Solutions, I have spent a lot of hours examining websites – from Target to Tide, social media, and blogs – Trying to determine what really works in today’s world of marketing – and what doesn’t. So this week, I leave you with this – Yet another clip from hubspot.com… 30 Brilliant Social Media Marketing Tips From 2011 

(Condensed to my top 15 favorites) 

1. Write blog content for your target audience, which is not necessarily yourself. This happens with startups a lot. They blog about being entrepreneurs, which is great – if your target audience is entrepreneurs. Blog about the things that your community wants to know about. (Source: Mark Suster)
2. Measure social media ROI by analyzing how it performs compared to more established channels or advertising methods. It’s not comparing apples-to-apples when it comes to cost, but you can compare the quality of traffic they drive to your website. (Source: The Next Web)
3. Mobile check-in deals aren’t just for restaurants and bars. See how one medical practice creatively offered a special to his tech-savvy patients for checking in. It’s something any small business marketer can learn from. (Source: Mashable)
4. How frequently you blog does count. Businesses that blog daily generate 5 times more traffic than those that post only weekly or daily. (Source: Social Media Examiner)
5. If you follow more people than are following you, you could harm your Twitter account’s SEO potential. Search engines “trust” those with more Twitter influence, and following many more people than follow you isn’t always an indicator of that. (Source: Marketing Profs)
6. Think of marketing as storytelling, and think of your customers as the characters. Think about what motivates them. Measure what patterns they display. Let their actions, wants, and needs drive the story. (Source: Joey Strawn)
7. What does your social media strategy really need? It needs to answer simple questions. Who am I speaking to? What do they want from me online? How will this strategy evolve? It’s not tools or tactics or having the perfect definition for either one. It comes down to these basic ideas that are all about tying social media to your businesses needs. (Source: Smart Blogs on Social Media)
8. The medium isn’t the message. Remember that Twitter, Facebook, or whatever platform you’re using isn’t the strategy; it’s a tool to distribute your message. (Source: Entrepreneur)
9. Choose to measure social media metrics that tell you how you’re doing based on why you’re doing social media in the first place. This will require you to step back and think about why you are tweeting, or why you have a Facebook Page. Is it because you want sales? Then measure conversion rates. Is it for market research? Then monitor trending topics. (Source: Clickz)
10. Use social media data to find your key influencers, outline your media plan, and develop your messaging. By listening to customer conversations on social media, companies can learn a lot of information about their competitors and industries that will help them better craft their marketing programs. (Source: Mashable)
11. Create a Facebook group to stay connected with those you meet at conferences months after the last panel. The new Facebook groups aren’t the old “I lost my cell phone number” most people have been invited to at some point. New groups allow you to email content, use collaborative group docs similar to Google Docs (perfect for sharing Twitter usernames or other contact information), and message the whole group at the same time. (Source: Social Fresh)
12. If you’re going to tell people to “like” your company on Facebook, have something of value waiting there for them. Give them a reason why they should “like” you. (Source: Outspoken Media)
13. Use social media contests as an opportunity to learn more about your customers. Ask them how they heard about your promotion to get a sense of what channels people use to learn more about your brand. (Source: Mashable)
14. Here are three universal content blueprints to include in your company’s blogs: offer a new opinion, create a killer list, or teach your customers how to do something. (Source: Social Fresh)
15. Include social sharing and follow buttons on your site, your blog, and in your emails. Use this how-to guide to learn how you can create them for all the major social media networks. (Source: HubSpot)

Read more: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/29348/30-Brilliant-Social-Media-Marketing-Tips-From-2011.aspx#ixzz1gNVoDul3