2008 The Year of Social Media Marketing

Marketers are desperately trying to learn the best ways to leverage social media marketing and bloggers play an essential role in driving word of mouth marketing as online influencers.  In short, bloggers can make or break a company’s viral marketing campaign. 

In 2008, we’ll undoubtedly see an even greater focus on social media marketing, and the stage is set for bloggers to take the lead as online influencers.  How can you increase your influence in the blogosphere and the larger world of Web 2.0?  The first step is to build your online network. 

If 2008 is the year of social media marketing, then it seems only natural for bloggers to start doing some of their own social media marketing to get the ball rolling.  With that in mind, I propose this New Year’s resolution for 2008 to build your online network and increase your role as an influencer in the social web:

Connect with one new blogger each week in 2008.

That’s it.  It’s that simple.  Look for a new blog that you’ve never read before and connect with the author.  Alternatively, take the time to finally reach out to a blogger whose blog you’ve enjoyed reading for some time but have yet to connect with.  It only takes a few minutes to make that initial contact, but the opportunities from that contact are vast.

Think of it this way.  If you make one new contact each week, you’ll have 52 new contacts in your rolodex at the end of 2008 that you may not have connected with had it not been for your 2008 New Year’s resolution of increasing your personal social media marketing efforts. 

While some of those contacts might fizzle out and not bring you broad value, many of them can bring new opportunities, ideas or friendships.  At the end of the day, isn’t that what blogging is all about?