As we kick off 2012 and make our New Year’s resolutions, one resolution on everyone’s business agenda should be to develop an ongoing social strategy. As social media platforms become mainstream and your industry competitors settle in for the long haul, there’s no better time to get organized.

Here are few tips for structuring your ongoing social program:

Start with a business plan.
Think of social media like you would a business plan. What are your objectives, KPIs and measures of success? Based on your answers, you can determine a level of investment that makes sense for your marketing mix.

Turn on the right channels.
Find your audience first. With a bevy of social outlets to choose from, you can dilute your brand and overwhelm your resources if you dive into too many too fast. Make the most of your budget and staff by selecting the channels with greatest reach to your target audience.

Think big (and small).
At all times you’ve got to keep your eye on the big picture, as well as the fine details. Determine how you’d like to see the yearlong conversation evolve, and then develop a monthly cadence to serve as a blueprint to further dialogue. But don't get too caught up in the plan—you'll need to be quick to adapt to events and your audience's needs on a daily basis.

Connect the dots.
Integrating all the pieces of the social puzzle is essential to a healthy ecosystem and your success. Consider traditional media, online display media, digital, special events, mobile, e-mail marketing, coupons, contests, etc. These moving parts should all work together and tease and support each other for greater impact.

Get the right tools.
Engage social media tools that will make your process more efficient and your program smarter. The costs of tools can offset the need for additional resources and provide more intelligent reporting to advise your next steps. Some tools are free and a no-brainer.

Get creative.
Experiment and be resourceful. A shiny, expensive app isn’t always the answer. Employ clever, easy tactics to gain awareness without over extending your budget and resources. And remember, quality over quantity — valuable content + utility is key. 

Be ready for real time.
Once you start it doesn’t stop. Have a plan for monitoring and responding to your audience. How often will you chime in? How will you handle negative comments? Who’s on point to respond? These are questions you should know the answers to. Consumer expectations are high. Not being prepared could ultimately damage your brand image.

Measure and optimize.
Last, but definitely not least, you’ll need a strategy for tracking, reporting and optimizing. ROI in social is debatable, but the benefits can be clear. There are several ways to measure success (and failure) to help guide your efforts, develop best practices and gain significant insights.

Mobile coupons seem as common of an idea as any mobile feature we use today; however, the idea of a mobile coupon is much simpler than the execution of one. It is estimated 77% of the world population are mobile subscribers, providing retailers and marketers unparalleled access to valuable consumers around the globe. Unfortunately, until the barriers for mobile coupons are addressed, consumers will still be cutting along the dotted lines.

What's the hold up? 

Retailers are behind the times.
Most retailers just aren't up to date and have incompatible POS systems. Many coupon companies need to install costly software or a widget into a retailer's POS system to enable any kind of mobile coupon functionality. The expense to update is just too great. 

Readability is poor.
The reflective sceens on smartphones are difficult for older, more widely used laser scanners to read. The newer, uncommon optical scanners (also known as "imagers") are the best for scanning smartphones.

There's a lack of knowledge.
Employees and consumers aren't always sure how it works. Consumers have a difficult time finding relevant coupons and once they do locate them, then what? On the other side, employees are usually not trained how to handle mobile coupons at check-out. 

Not always the best experience.
As mentioned earlier, if consumers have to work too hard to find the coupon and endure a rocky redemption process, is it really worth it? 

Must meet standards.
Like most new technologies, there are many gray lines when it comes to mobile compliancies. However, the standards that retailers, manufacturers and advertisers must follow can create speed bumps or even barriers.

What are the benefits? 

Flexibility is key.
Retailers can be more nimble and cost effective when offering savings digitally. They're not tied to print schedules and can more easily update offers and expiration dates.

Mobile is the sweet spot.
Newspapers typically service older subscribers. The mobile demographic skews younger and more affluent.

Almost anyone can play.
Securing advertising in weekly circulars can be difficult. The lower threshold for mobile advertising gives smaller companies a chance to get in the game.

You get to know people.
Mobile coupons have the ability to provide retailers more information about their consumers, including demographics and locations.

Check out this Forbes blog for more info. 

Who's doing it right? 

Target hit the bull's eye.
Target took advantage of being one of the first nationwide retailers to roll out scannable mobile coupons in their stores. This retail giant texts customers mobile coupons that can be redeemed at the cashier with a simple scan. So far, Target is the only retailer fully equipped to do such coupons and be compliant with disability requirements. 

What's next?

The mobile wallet.
NFC (near-field technology) also known as "PayPass" technology is the direction many retailers are heading. Retailers like the use of this technology since their credit card machines are already equipped with it. 

Last October I wrote a post about social search, and despite past failures such as Buzz, I predicted a competitive social offering from Google. Now, here we are 10 months later with Google+, which supposedly has added an estimated 20+ million users in just a couple of weeks. An impressive start, yes, but will Google+ actually turn out to be a long-term player?

The coolest thing I have encountered so far in my limited experience with Google+ is the “circles” feature. This allows you to segment your “friends” into different groups. For example, you can share something (maybe somewhat inappropriate) with a group of “close friends” without your “work friends” seeing it (and avoid an invite to the HR office). For businesses, this allows them to segment their communities and tailor content for specific groups (for example investors vs. customers), test ideas with select users/customers, or share “inside information” with social media influencers. Organizing circles opens up a whole new world of customized options for crowdsourcing, learning, privacy, sharing and organization of contacts.

Beyond that, I honestly haven’t found anything in the user experience that is groundbreaking, although I have yet to really get into it. Also, this is a limited beta version. There is still no API, so for now, there are no third-party applications, ads, games, etc. So it’s hard to tell the impact and potential this has for social media marketing.

The big question is, will Google+ be a serious threat to major players like Facebook and Twitter?

It’s possible, there is a lot of potential there, but they might be hitting the market a little late. I don’t know about you, but the first thing I thought when I received my first Google+ invitation was “Really, another social network I have to manage and participate in?” Are people going to add Google+ into the mix when they already have to manage their Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr accounts and so on? There is only so much time in the day.

Either way, this will put Google in a good position when it comes to social search. Currently, content within Google+ is not searchable, but in organic Google searches, the more content is shared via social media (any network), the better it does in search results. With all the tools at their disposal, Google is very well positioned to come up with a solution that really connects social and search.

And even if social search doesn’t materialize into a significant market force, Google still has plenty of options to make money by tying Google+ into its existing offerings (paid search, display ads, offers/daily deals and more).

In the first two installments of best practices for postmortems, I touched on setting up a postmortem, Part I, and what goes into a postmortem, Part II. Today, I'll wrap up the series with closing thoughts on things to avoid and valuable next steps.  

Items to avoid during a postmortem

There are some actions that do not help us improve on our processes and should be avoided in a postmortem:

1. Do not call out individuals. The key is to identify what went wrong, not who caused the issue. Try and be as solution-oriented as possible.  
2. Do not go over the budgets in front of the whole team. If you feel it's necessary, cover schedules and talk about estimates, but we don't need to talk numbers with the entire team. Usually when we go over budget, it was from a larger planning issue that involved management.

What comes out of postmortem?

You must have a list of core action items after every postmortem. Otherwise the practice wasn't useful. Sometimes as an account service or project manager employee, you may not have a good idea for a solution to a technical problem. For these items, send out tasks to team leads in the other departments to help you formulate the list of action items. For each item, if possible to address immediately, have an owner and a timeline for completion. Other action items not immediately addressed will be reviewed by the management team and assigned appropriately. 

Being on the mobile team here at Springbox and focusing on all things mobile, I came across an article from Stephen Mellish on utalkmarketing.com about the gap between mobile marketing adoption and smartphone growth. The first thing that caught my attention was in the first line: "Recent news that sales of mobile device overtaking personal computers has come as a surprise to analysts and experts alike."

The author provides statistics to support this statement, which is sort of a wake-up call on the momentum shift to mobile devices for personal computing. "Manufacturers sold a total of 101 million smartphones in the last three months of 2010, up 87% from the same period a year earlier, while PC shipments reached 92 million units in the fourth quarter, up less than 3%."

The article goes on to state the tipping point is approaching much faster than originally predicted, surprising many. And in order to close the gap, retailers and media organizations need to pick up the pace progressing towards mobile web adoption and do it fast. They are missing abundant sales opportunities as a result of this trend.

A few who are doing it right:

Starbucks developed a successful "touch to pay" app for iPhone and Blackberry users to purchase coffee beverages using their phones. Starbucks CEO, Howard Shultz announced the new app was used by three million people in three months. That's a lotta java.

Ancestry.com recently announced their mobile app for iPhone, iPad and iPod was downloaded over one million times. You can now take your family tree with you. 

ESPN launched a free app WatchESPN that allows some cable subscribers to view a live stream of ESPN to watch the Masters, NBA Playoffs and MLB games. 

At Springbox, we are witnessing phenomenal smartphone usage and growth in the marketplace. It's evident in the number of users who use smartphones to access our current clients' full-version websites. We are passionate about taking advantage of mobile opportunities to provide a robust mobile strategy as part of our portfolio for new and existing clients. Some of our mobile sites include a Livestrong iPhone app, Livestrong Spanish mobile site and a mobile site for Central Market. We have even delved into the realm of using QR codes in the Central Market Chocolate campaign.

App or site? We'll find the right one for you.