New Year’s Social Media Resolutions Failing? How about a Groundhog Day Promise?

Most likely you have already forgotten or fallen short on your New Year’s resolutions. This means you are free to make a Groundhog Day Promise.  Starting on Groundhog Day, February 2nd, simply promise yourself and your business that you will create and implement a real social media marketing program for the remainder of the year.

On February 2nd, Groundhog Day, we know what is going to happen: Punxsutawney Phil, Malverne Mel and Staten Island Chuck are going to see their own shadows.  This means six more weeks of cold, snowy, wintery weather.

Unless you are a “powered hound” and you live to ski or snowboard, the thought of six more weeks of winter can be depressing.  Going to work in the dark and returning home after the sun sets for six weeks may sound gloomy, but it need not be unproductive for you and your business.  Without a shadow of doubt, the groundhog has set the stage for you.  You now have six weeks to tweak your social media marketing program.

New Year’s resolutions are for the procrastinators.  The six-week approach is much better.   Why not review, revamp and implement a real social media marketing program for your business. No more excuses and no more simply dabbling with social media: it’s time to make the commitment.  Most businesses and people think they have a social media marketing program in place already, but the truth is that most have little more than a basic presence in the social media world.

Let’s admit that by seeing his shadow, the groundhog has given us a gift — six weeks of winter to put plans in action.  We recommend you take on the following tasks over the next six weeks and predict that at the end you will have a real social media program in place.

• Investigate what is new in social media marketing
• Review 2010 social media marketing successes and failure
• Determine the ROI of past social media marketing efforts
• Establish social media marketing budgets, timelines and time allocations
• Create a new plan for social media marketing with defined goals
• Implement a new social media marketing plan
• Establish ongoing systems to assess social media marketing successes and failures

If you are looking for an in-depth Six-Week Social Media Marketing Plan with a list of  tasks to undertake each week, e-mail me at wjcorbett@corbettpr.com.  I will send you a link to a six-week program outline that you can use to implement a social media marketing program for your business or for your personal brand.

You have six weeks to keep your promise to get your social media program up and running.  The perfect target date is March 15.  This date’s easy to aim for – recall Shakespeare’s famous quote: Beware the Ides of March. The great author is referring to the date Roman Emperor Julius Caesar was assassinated at the hand of Brutus and others.   The only thing you need to fear is failure to start the process.  Social media results will to not happen overnight but by starting now you can reap rewards and real ROI in the months to come.

Like the groundhog there is no need to be afraid of your shadow and run and hide.  Make the promise that you will take the  necessary steps to implement a real and effective  social media program.  Failure to do so will see you fall behind your competition, fail to be part of the online conversation in your industry and, finally, fail to grow your business and your personal brand.   Six weeks is not a long time, but it is a long-enough time period to get the elements of a plan in place.  Make the effort, and it will pay off for months and years to come.

Let me know how you do and if you need some support along the way send me your questions.