Top 10 Ways to Get Your Social Media in Check for the New Year

When the calendar flips to the New Year, it's an excellent time to check in with yourself both professionally and personally to see what's working and what may need a little bit of improvement. In that vein, I'd like to present the top 10 ways to tune up your social media for 2015.
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When the calendar flips to the New Year, it's an excellent time to check in with yourself both professionally and personally to see what's working and what may need a little bit of improvement. In that vein, I'd like to present the top 10 ways to tune up your social media for 2015.

Here goes:

1.Has your social-media vision changed in the last year? If so, how? It's entirely likely that your business has evolved over the last twelve months. With this in mind, it's critical to make sure that your online strategy has kept pace. If you're focusing on different business elements or looking to reach a new audience, you want to make sure that you're addressing these shifts through your social-media efforts.

2.Do you understand the various platforms available to you? Do you know which most closely meet your needs? Facebook is not a one-size-fits-all. Sometimes you need to look at all your options before deciding on the platforms that work best for your individual needs. Evaluate carefully before jumping in, and when you commit, commit fully.

3.What are you looking to get out of social media? Are your goals realistic?Merely creating a Twitter account is not necessarily going to jump-start your business. You need to evaluate what you want from your social-media strategy and how much effort you're willing to lay down in order to achieve it.

4.Which tools do you plan to track your progress? Are they the right ones for your purposes? How will you know that you're reaching your goals if you can't monitor how well you're doing in getting there? Metrics are key indicators of your movement, whether it's forward, backward or stable.

5.Are you ready to do some cleanup? Over time, we accumulate stuff. This extends to our social networks. You may have picked up some connections that don't mean much to you today. Now's the time to pare back the networks so that you have bandwidth for new friends and associates.

6.Can you stem the addiction? Are you constantly checking your social-media apps on your phone, even when you should be putting your attention elsewhere? You may consider deleting the apps for a brief period to test your ability to limit your need for them.

7.Do your existing social-media profiles reflect who you are and what you're seeking right now? You may have set up your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn profiles months or even years ago. When was the last time you updated them? Now is the time to give them a good going-over.

8.Are your social-media settings appropriate to your goals? Now's the time to think about what needs to be private and what should go public. Remember, not everyone needs to see everything.

9.Do your passwords offer enough protection? When was the last time you changed your passwords? Have you evaluated them recently? If not, you may be at risk for getting hacked - and that doesn't look awfully professional.

10.Are you enjoying the process? If not, it's time to change up your game. Social media should be a fun way to connect with your audience. If it's feeling like too much work, there are probably some adjustments that need to be made.

I'd love your feedback and to hear your goals for 2015. Leave me a comment below or on my Facebook Page!

This post originally appeared here

Katie Lance is a speaker, social media consultant and frequent contributor to The Huffington Post. For more information, please visit her site or send her a tweet @katielance

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