As 2011 faded from memory and 2012 came into sharper focus, people around the world engaged in the annual “resolution ritual.” This post invites folks to share their social media goals for the year ahead, evaluate the progress they have made so far in keeping the resolutions they have made, and refocus their efforts to ensure their goals are realistic rather than idealistic.

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Although I am constantly making (and breaking) resolutions, I do view the start of a new year as an opportunity to be more focused and disciplined in my approach to change. And as someone who spends much of her time in cyberspace, a fair number of my resolutions for 2012 are related to my digital activity.

As I was formulating my plans for the year ahead, I became curious to know if other people were making digitally-oriented resolutions as well. So a few weeks ago I posted a query in a handful of places to see what kind of response I would get. Although my query was met with deafening silence in some places, I got some good responses in others, including:

Many of the resolutions people shared offered great food for thought and enabled me to evaluate my own goals in a different light. Because I think there’s value in public sharing (and accountability!), I thought I’d take a more formal approach to soliciting people’s 2012 resolutions. So here’s my query again:

All the talk about social media forecasts and New Year's resolutions has me wondering if folks have made any social media resolutions for themselves, with their work groups, and/or in their organizations. 

Have you created any (new) social media goals? 
Do you plan to start any (new) social media initiatives? 
What do you want to do more of in 2012? What do you want to do less of? 

I'm looking forward to hearing - and being inspired by - your ideas. Thanks! 

Now that we’re one month into the new year, we also have an opportunity to evaluate our progress in achieving our goals, and perhaps regroup and refocus our efforts. In particular, many of us have likely discovered that our initial goals may have been more idealistic than realistic. I’d love to hear people’s reports on their successes (and failures) so far, and how they have adjusted their focus to more pragmatic and achievable goals.

So, how are you doing? I’m looking forward to hearing about your goals and progress to date!

-  Courtney Shelton Hunt, PhD

PS - Is LinkedIn a focus of people’s resolutions for 2012? Based on the response to  7 Simple To Dos for LinkedIn Rookies to Enhance Their Profiles, it appears so!

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In the interest of full disclosure (and public accountability), here’s a brief report on my main social media resolutions for 2012:

  • Promote even greater focus on the applications and implications of social media in organizations. This has been my mission for over three years, and the reason I founded the Social Media in Organizations (SMinOrgs) Community. For a variety of reasons (e.g., lack of knowledge and understanding, fear, the global economy), progress has been pretty slow, but as I noted in the recent State of the Community report, there has been a marked increase in interest and activity in the past 3-6 months.  I need to capitalize on that interest by promoting the growth of SMinOrgs, continuing my education efforts through writing and speaking, and helping organizational leaders focus on the most important issues and initiatives.
  • Evaluation: As always, it seems, my ambitions outstrip my capacity – but I keep plugging away!  We started a member recruitment campaign for the SMinOrgs LI group, and so far the response has been great. I have generally achieved my goal of at least two (educationally oriented) blog posts per week and am pursuing new speaking opportunities. I need to be sure I stay focused on the issues I consider most important, so I don’t spread myself too thin.
  • Read less (and filter more). As a content curator and someone who strives to develop and maintain a high level of digital expertise, I must read almost constantly. But keeping up with the daily deluge of information and news is more than a full time job. The more I take in, the less I can put out. So I have vowed to be more selective about the kinds of stories I focus on and the sources I rely on. 
  • Evaluation: I am definitely more focused on creating my own content, which automatically reduces the amount of time I have to take new content in. But knowing that I’m missing things and falling behind is unsettling. I need to further increase my filters and rely on the delete key even more.
  • Be smarter about where – and how – I engage. This is an ongoing goal for me, but I need to be even more conscious of it in 2012. I have to focus on the digital communities that are most relevant to my personal and professional objectives. And whenever I am tempted by a topic or conversation, I need to stop and ask myself if commenting is the best use of my time relative to those objectives.   
  • Evaluation: As noted above, this is not easy. I hate feeling like I’m missing something or falling behind. I also feel bad when I don’t support my fellow community members by liking or commenting on things they share. But I have to get over it.

It really all comes down to focus and discipline, and I’m generally doing okay with both. But I feel like a bit of an automaton, and I hate feeling like I’m dissing people by not immediately responding to their messages, commenting on their posts, or even answering the phone when they call at inopportune times. Managing work – and relationships – in the Digital Era is not easy!