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