While everyone’s out there making their New Year social media predictions, I thought it was time for some personal introspection.

For the most part, 2008 was a great year for me. If there was one year I felt I grew the most (internally, ’cause God knows I’m still 5′2) it was this one. From my career, to my relationships, to my family, I feel like I made great strides and have become more cognizant of what my goals, dreams and needs in life are. It feels good.

I talk a lot about my work on this blog, but here are the highlights of my year in a month-to-month snapshot, whether those highlights are for work, play or anything in between. I hope it helps you get a better feel for who I am (pictures included!):

After posting her own, Kelli Matthews at the wonderful PRos in Training blog asked me to write about my “social” resolutions for 2009.

So, here’s my stab at a resolution list. Drum rollll….

Have the eyes of an early adopter, but analyze like an investor

Someone recently told me that a good side of our economy’s state is that startups our slowing down, giving us the chance to actually catch our breath and analyze social media advancements as they come along. So true!

As advancements arise in 2009, albeit if there’s less of them, I resolve to approach each with the eyes of an early adopter - to seek out innovation, to get excited about the potential, to think about long-term implications, to dream big about how I can implement the new tools into my life and work. At the same time, I also want to approach these advancements like an investor. To think about longevity. The revenue model. Scalability.

This approach, although not entirely foolproof, will help me stay ahead of the curve, but not so ahead that I’m investing my time in tools that have no long-term potential and/or far-reaching influence.

Unite my online social life with my “real” social life

Ask people I know through Twitter out to coffee. Introduce myself at events and strike up conversations longer than 140 characters. Sure, social media is great for “meeting” people outside of my normal social circle, but I also want to use social media more as a tool to make those people part of my “real” social circle.

Implement social media advancements at an agency level

For those who don’t know me well, I’m in the process of moving to San Francisco to work at a tech PR agency. Whatever agency I land at, a huge goal of mine is to be involved in taking advancements that are happening in social media and technology and help implement them at the agency. This is really the heart of my long-term career goals and a primary reason why I wrote my last post about agency differentiation in terms of technologies, systems and processes (and as a whole, agency self-marketing).

At my last agency, for instance, I developed an entirely new way to manage press contacts and press lists, which I ultimately would like to flush out and sell as a SaaS to other agencies (I just need the funding for development. HELLO investors? You out there?)

I resolve to continue to think forward, ask myself “what’s a better way to do this?” and look for more ways to become heavily involved in “next-step” projects at work.

Be proactive, not only reactive

I want to be more proactive in my use of and interactions within social media. If I hear about something that a friend on Twitter might like, I need to send it his or her way. If I think of an idea one of my favorite bloggers should write about, I want to let them know about it – and not just if it has to do with one of my clients!

I also want to continue to develop original and compelling content here on this blog, as opposed to reactively posting about issues everyone else is writing about. I really like the model that Andy Biao of Upcoming fame uses on Waxy.org. Always interesting content. Always original.

Conclusion

I think the overall theme in my resolutions for this year is to take what I already do in social media and make it more applicable to my everyday life – whether it be for work or play. As a whole, I have a really good feeling about 2009 and haven’t felt this excited in a long time.

Have your own “social” resolutions? Would love to hear what you are planning on doing.

Photo via curly_exp( l)osure, Flickr

I was doing some 2009 brainstorming for a freelance client recently. This company is ultimately a service business. It doesn’t sell its own product or have any proprietary technologies. One of my suggestions was to put branding over its process to make what it does more tangible. So prospects can say, “Aha. I get what you do and I understand what we will get from you!”

Agencies face the same exact problem. They’re ultimately service businesses. What’s a given agency’s process, though? What makes it different?

Go to a number of agencies’ Web sites and you often find the same language. The same services. The same promises.

The truth is there are few agencies that are actually alike internally. Also, that few agencies get social media. And they’re are few that are nearly as good at developing messaging around themselves as they are their clients.

I get it. Writing a biography for yourself is hard. But just as we tell our clients: Differentiate or die.

Even though themediaisdying, we must think deeper than integrating social media into our work to keep up with the movement from print to online and the hands of citizen journalists.

For the longevity of our agencies, we must develop novel ideas, systems and technologies that help us do a better job at what we do and communicate how we are different to (potential) clients. Then clients can look at us and say – “Aha. I get what you do and I understand what we will get!” They can preview an agency spearheaded monitoring technology, for instance, and say, “No one else is doing this. We will be five steps ahead of our competition if we choose you as our AOR.”

I truly feel that so much emphasis has been placed on social media the last few years that we have forgotten the basics (not to say social media isn’t important. It’s a huge passion of mine). We must put the air mask on ourselves before we can put it on others.

If we wait too long – helping others and not developing our processes and messaging internally – we are are putting our organizations at huge risk, particularly in a time when the same number of agencies are competing for a fewer number of available accounts.