Your Digital New Year’s Resolutions for 2017!

Digitally speaking you may have scraped through 2016, a bit of social media here, a couple of videos here, some sporadic emails, a bit of paid marketing, but 2017 is nearly here. We’re here to tell you that you need to do digital better in 2017, so these are the New Year’s resolutions to make in order to get you there.

Work out your baseline

If you want to improve, you need to know what you’re starting with. Just as you kick off your new year fitness regime with a weigh in, may be start keeping a food diary to see what you’re really eating (not what you tell yourself you’re eating), do the same for your digital presence. Auditing your digital presence may seem like the most tedious job in the world, but get the coffee on, get going and you’ll be surprised by what you can achieve – and how much it will help you as you develop the new digital you!

Start working out

A website workout, that is. Just as you can’t expect to run a marathon if you only pop to the gym every so often, or count ‘running for the bus’ as ‘training’, so you can’t let your website sit quietly in the corner eating digital biscuits. Give it regular exercise by updating and refreshing content, and start to see those SEO muscles stretch as the bots that patrol the internet begin to recognise your website as agile and pro-active.

Clear out the clutter

Digitally speaking, once you’ve audited your digital presence, you may well be able to see what needs to go – that social media platform you never use, perhaps? Or paid advertising that isn’t delivering results? Be ruthless. You may love posting photos in Instagram (just an example!!) but if it’s not delivering what your business needs, you either need to change your approach or ditch it. Remember that although you may not have paid to set up the accounts or to post on them, it can cost hugely in terms of your time.

Be more organised

It’s a common new year’s resolution in life, and with good reason. And it can just as easily be applied to your digital presence. Without a structured approach to your digital marketing, it is very easy to lose track of what you’re doing, what’s working and what’s delivering return on investment. It’s also easy to get distracted by the next new, shiny thing instead of following your strategy through. Being organised and planning may sound boring, but it’s the best way to be a better digital you. And don’t forget that planning doesn’t mean you can’t be spontaneous, or tweak as you go (in fact, we’d almost certainly suggest that tweaking will be necessary), it will just help you keep your spontaneity and tweaking on track.

Budget better

The reality of digital marketing is that to do it effectively costs money. Either you do it yourself in which case you need to get someone on board to do the day job, or you need to employ someone, or work with a digital marketing agency. Whether you’re looking at personal finances or your marketing budget, the principles are the same. Be realistic, budget according to your business’s means and the results you want to achieve and stick with it.
Now, we all know that many New Year’s Resolutions fail at the first hurdle because the people who make them aren’t really that committed, or lack the resolve to stick with them long enough to start seeing the results. But in this digital age, it’s critical for your business to take your digital resolutions for 2017 seriously, and see them through. And if you need some help, a digital drill instructor (or a softly spoken voice of encouragement) to keep you on track, we’d be happy to help!

Read Also: Identify your digital assets

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