Getting Serious With Social Media

This is the year to buckle down and tackle a social media strategy. It's time to get serious!!

Here's 10 ways to get serious about social media in 2010:

1) Quit counting fans, followers, and blog subscribers like bottle caps. Think, instead, about what you're hoping to achieve with and through the community that actually cares about what you're doing.

2) Learn how to measure your efforts by utilizing reporting and stats. Quit making excuses for why you can't do it - and make this a part of your Social Media strategy.

3) Learn what case studies can do and can't do for you. Stop saying there aren't enough of them and go Google the term "social media case studies" or spend a few minutes on my Delicious links. Then, get busy writing your own.

4) Understand the difference between making a business case for social media and chasing the next and greatest fad. If you don't understand how to explain where social media impacts areas outside the business besides your own, make a concerted effort to learn.

5) Stop lauding social media as the thing that's going to fix it all. Fix your business first.

6) Approach social media methodically, and with the same care that you would any other business investment you make.

7) Quit waiting for the water to be perfect before you get in. It's not going to be, ever. Try something that makes strategic sense for your business.

8 ) Think long term, and commit to it. That doesn't mean some of your experiments can't be finite, but the overall approach has to be for good.

9) Focus on what you're good at. Know the core of your business, and make that the center of your work, especially through the amplifier of social media.

10) Recognize that potential missteps shouldn't paralyze you into inaction. Acknowledge that there are ways to recover from, say, a misguided communication effort. Having a plan to pick yourself up is the key, rather than trying to avoid failure at all costs (including stagnation).

What else would you add? What's your buckle-down strategy this year, and how are you turning your approach from theory into application? Share your ideas, favorite posts, and strategies in the comments.

Abridged: Amber Naslund, Altitudebranding.com