Now is the time to start thinking about your goals and plans for 2011, especially regarding your online presence. A new year is a great time to evaluate your current strategy and see what’s working and what isn’t. Start the year out right by doing something new instead of the same old thing. It’s also the perfect time to set new goals and push your company to the next level by integrating better designs, smarter and more targeted campaigns, more social media, a new blog, etc. Starting now will give you some time to think about what you’d like to achieve and set up a plan to get there so you can start executing in the beginning of January.

Evaluate

First you’ll want to evaluate your current plan and determine if the items you have in place are working well. Look at your website, blog, social media sites, and email marketing to see how you’re doing in all these different areas.

• Is your website working as hard as it can for you? If it’s outdated or doesn’t fit your company, it’s definitely time for an update. Sometimes a new design is hard to justify if the one you have works. Don’t settle for something that works though, if it doesn’t showcase your company as the rockstars you are, then you may want to plan on revising it.
• How well is your social media plan working for you? If you’re currently involved in Facebook and it’s working well for you, that’s great! But if it isn’t working, try to determine why. Do you post often enough? Are you not reaching out to the right audience? Do you put enough effort into it? There is usually a good reason why certain sites are working better than others and there can be many factors at play there.
• Does your blog get the traffic it deserves? If you aren’t getting a lot of traffic and don’t have many subscribers, there are 3 things that may be causing it: you don’t post often enough, you don’t promote it well enough, you don’t post rich enough content. Change these things and you should see a significant change!
• Are you receiving a good response from your email marketing? Email marketing is a great way to stay in touch with old clients, gain new ones, and give valuable information to clients and colleagues. If you aren’t getting a good response you may want to look at promoting it more or emailing about different topics.

If things aren’t working, try to come up with a solution. Or if they just aren’t going to work, throw it out! There are so many things to look at but this should give you a good starting point to get you thinking and ready for brainstorming!

Brainstorm

Now that you’ve figured out what you want to keep in 2011, you should start thinking about new things you want to implement.

• If you don’t currently have a company blog, start one.
• Join a new social media site. There are tons out there, and the more exposure your company gets, the better. (Don’t join so many that you can’t keep up with them. Make sure the ones you use are getting enough attention from you.)
• Customize your social media sites if you haven’t already. (Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube all allow for custom stuff)
• Change up your website design.
• Get a new, matching email newsletter. It will make your emails look more polished and professional.
• Add better and stronger content to your website.
• Change the layout of your site to make it more user-friendly.

There are so many options and things you can do to expand your online presence and diversify your efforts. Make sure your company is in enough places and that they all provide the same powerful experience for your users. If the content or designs don’t match up in any of these places, it’s time to change that!

Strategize

Now that you know what you want to implement, you can start planning on how to make the magic happen. Don’t try to do it all at once, but rather create a plan for the year, and break it up into manageable sections. Some items may even fall into a 5 or 10 year plan. Don’t be afraid to dream big and write down all the things you want to do with your online presence. Make sure you always maintain your brand and identity, but continue to build your company with everything you do.

Having a unique and powerful online presence is important. With the new year, you always get a great opportunity to start fresh and evaluate your company’s plans. Start now and plan big!