It is the start of a new year.  Usually, it is the time when people come up with a list of things they want to do and the things they want to avoid doing.  New Year’s resolutions do not only apply to your personal activities; you should also have a list of things to do for your business.

When it comes to your social media efforts, you might benefit from taking a look at what you did last year and try to gauge if your are doing it all right, and what you can learn from the mistakes you made.  Social media campaigns are not set in stone and they are largely trial and error.  But there are a lot of things that you SHOULD do if you want to successfully market on social media sites.  Here are the 26 things that every business owner should do when they are using social media for their marketing:

Attitudes.

Do you:

1. Realize that it is not Facebook or Twitter that gives you new customers but your customers who recommend you to their friends, share your content on their own accounts, and basically give you a glowing review?
2. Accept the fact that you need to spend time on social media sites to keep your customers happy?
3. Know that it is best to be active and to participate in discussions?
4. Go for authenticity and not let your social media tools take over your campaign?
5. Realize the need to monitor what’s being said about you in the social world?
6. Know just how much consumer opinion and reviews matter?
7. Accept that you would need to learn about social media and that a successful social media plan is not often achievable overnight?
8. Have a social media plan in place?
9. Know the best social media platforms for your business?
10. Take time to see what other brands, companies and individuals have done for their own social marketing efforts and see what you could adapt?

Best Practices.

Do you:

11. Make it easy for your blog readers to share your blog posts on their favorite social networking site?
12. Give exclusive deals on your social media properties? Facebook-only discounts and Twitter-only deals?
13. Take time to comment and reply to relevant posts on your page’s wall?
14. Answer customer questions and deal with complaints left on your Facebook page?
15. Avoid selling your products and services too much on your social media properties?
16. Put up call-to-action buttons or ask your customers to share your blog posts, status updates, contests and other content?
17. Encourage your customers to participate in the discussions?
18. Encourage your customers to leave reviews and recommendations for your products and services?
19. Measure your efforts?  Do you know what type of content brings in the most number of likes, or which tweets get the most number of retweets?
20. Do you share what you know?
21. Do you act on customer complaints made on your social networking pages and make your products better or strive to give your customers better service?
22. Tie your social media efforts with your in-store promotions?
23. Hold in-store seminars, sales and other events that you could offer to your likers or followers?
24. Avoid using promotional content for your blogs, Facebook updates or tweets?
25. Accept your mistakes and apologize for it?
26. Give out your contact information for everybody to see?