You can extend the same philosophy to your social media presence. Having a digital footprint is a good thing these days, but what about the digital dirt we rake in along the process? How do we clean up that? While it might not be possible to erase back all your wrong moves, now might be a good time to reflect back and give your virtual avatars a detox.

Sharing some of my ideas around that -

Reposition your persona – We as people come with myriad emotions and multifarious facets of ourselves that we tend to portray in our everyday lives. Somewhere down the line, it is possible to lose track of who we are or who we ‘want to be’ under all those faces. If you feel that you have derailed from that original path or have lost your initial luster and essence, then it’s probably not a bad idea to pause and reboot your system. Don’t be afraid to start afresh and refocus your energies on where you need to be. Like one block at a time, rebuild or reposition your online persona and reputation one comment, tweet, discussion thread and post at a time. After a point, the current will supersede the old.

Sharpen your message – Are you focusing on the right things that matter the most to you? Do you still stand by what you believed in when you started out? Or do you think you have drifted away from your core beliefs. Do not ever feel pressurized to dilute down on what you originally came forth to say. In the same token don’t get distracted by all the frills and fancy in your simple messaging. It’s never a bad idea to get back to basics and discard any additional unwanted layers. I’m tempted to quote Avinash Kaushik (@avinash) again with “Don’t sexify, simplify!

Be willing to give before you ask – Don’t always hoard onto ideas or resources as your proprietary domain. Enrich it by sharing it with others and gaining back more through crowdsourcing. The more you give to your online community, the more you get back be it in the form of ideas, solutions, fans, followers or friends!

Trust the WYSIWYG effect – What you sow is what you get! (Yeah I tweaked it slightly.) So make sure you are sowing the right seeds in building your reputation. I believe it begins with not just sharing your views but respecting other people’s viewpoints. You need to give respect to earn respect! Don’t be too hung up on your way. There are many different perspectives to looking at the same thing. So allow yourself to be surprised by keeping an open mind. Today’s social media provides that perfect platform in teaching us omnifarious thinking.

I believe Social Media is like good karma, what goes around comes around in leaps and bounds. So make sure you are attracting what you are sending out to your universe whether it’s with your content, comments, friends, family or just pictures.

With that, I’d like to end this year’s last post by sending out my best wishes and warm regards wishing each one of you a very happy and promising New Year in 2011. I thank you all for your comments encouraging me to keep writing and for keeping our dialogues exciting! Until next year…so long!

Photo by Marquette La

I wanted to use this time to reminisce about some of the memorable social media mantras of this year that stayed in my head from gleaning over the myriad social networking sites and blogs. Sharing these with you in no particular order:

“If your product sucks, social media makes it suck harder” - @unmarketing, Scott Stratten

BlogWorld’s opening keynote speaker Scott elaborates – What you see on social media sites is an amplification of your product (be it an actual product you’re selling or just you blog that you’re promoting). If your product sucks, people are likely going to complain. At the very least, people won’t promote you on social media, which is nearly as bad as negative feedback. Make a great product, and social media users will pick up on that and promote it. Again, people spread awesome.

“Make sure you do not create a Facebook strategy; have a strategy that you can apply your Facebook to” - @charleneli, Charlene Li

Charlene Li’s response when asked about where to begin with building a business social media strategy during an open panel discussion at The Premiere Business Leadership Series (PBLS), Las Vegas. It goes back to the age-old adage of, don’t put the cart before the horse. If you do not link what you are doing in social media to your overall business objectives, all is lost. A reminder that social media is merely a tool to be utilized in conjunction with the overarching goal and not to be treated as a solution in itself.

“Don’t ever sell to your audience. Instead, be their gatekeeper” - @chrisbrogan, Chris Brogan & @julien, Julien Smith

And I quote an excerpt from their book Trust Agents: Think of Oprah Winfrey. She gives and gives, constantly, and leverages that goodwill into bigger and bigger guests and giveaways. But does she ever try to sell her audience directly? No, Winfrey leverages her audience to provide visibility: to stars, to movies, to car companies. She protects her audience by guarding them from the bad stuff, and she lets the good stuff pass through, making her audience even happier as a result.

“Think very carefully about what you are measuring if you do measure engagement” - @avinash, Avinash Kaushik

The Analytics evangelist for Google Marketing succinctly and quite simply states in his blog while talking about metrics and engagement, If engagement to you is repeat  visitors by visitors then call it Visit Frequency, don’t call it engagement. Don’t sexify, simplify!

Come to think of it, we tend to colorize and layerize (yup, I just coined that word. Poetic license) everything. A simple reminder to get back to basics and more importantly, leave it at that!

I conclude with this quote as my personal favorite, being especially guilty about the exercising part!

“Don’t even try to “find the time to create content and participate in social media.” You’ll fail - @dmscott, David Meerman Scott 

Just like “finding the time to exercise” leads to failure and wasted money on health club memberships. Instead, make exercise and social media important parts of your life.

These are just few of the interesting and smirk-provoking quotes that left a ruminating and lasting impression in my head.

What have been some of the poignant wisdoms you’ve heard or came across in your readings this year? Do share!

Photos by Martin Kimeldorf’s Pixel Playground & Wallyg