DIGtrends: Spheres of Influence from Digital Influence Group

My New Year’s Resolution

Posted January 4th, 2008 by Scott

2008 has finally arrived! Now it’s time to get up off the couch and commit to your resolutions. My first and foremost commitment is dedicating more time to my footprint in social media. Yes it’s true, I work for a social media marketing company and KNOW the value and necessity of taking part in the everyday blog-to-blog discussions and infamous social networks. But the truth of the matter is in 2007 I did the same thing that many others out there did, I OBSERVED. The start of 2008 is the perfect time to act on our “research” from last year.

I know what I need to do. Do you? If not, here are a few ways that you can get yourself and your business involved in online conversations:

1. Monitor the conversations going on about you, your company and your products. Utilize RSS feeds like Google Reader to help you monitor the day-to-day conversations.

2. Contribute to blog posts via comments, participate in online communities and forums, and share your own opinions within consumer review sites. Monitor your brand (Technorati and Google Blog Search can help with that) – if you’re being talked about, whether positive or negative, get involved in the conversation. Let your customers know their voices are being heard. Often enough some of the biggest critics will become advocates because you acknowledge their complaints.

3. Sign up and create profiles for all the major social networks (Myspace, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.). Since we live in a world where it’s not what you know but rather who you know, expand your network and reconnect with old friends and colleagues.

4. Take the plunge and START A BLOG! There are loads of platforms available (Wordpress, TypePad, etc.) where you can sign up and have your own blog up and running in minutes!

Keep in mind the web is rapidly evolving – putting off what you could do with social media today until tomorrow could leave you up to your neck in catch up work .