With 2016 looming, it is time to start thinking about your new year’s resolutions for the upcoming year.  Think beyond losing weight or cutting out alcohol or smoking, think about your professional new year’s resolutions instead.  Everyone makes mistakes at work and the New Year is the ideal time to look at errors that have been made or proven areas of improvement from over the last year and begin to consider how you can change this next year.  Though there are some general resolutions applicable to all professionals, usually resolutions will vary between industries and job roles.

Digital marketers benefit from making New Year’s resolutions just like every other professional, though their resolutions are very unique to them and their role.  Here are ten perfect New Year’s resolutions digital marketers should consider making:

Experiment with new content

Keep creating high quality content, but experiment with new topics of conversations.  This could potentially engage more people in your content and expand your following.  In trying new content, consider using photo and video content, something which is incredibly popular and very effective in making posts and content go viral.

Create content for digital assistants, such as Siri and Cortana

Until this point you will have been creating content for SEO and PPC purposes, however, it is time to focus on creating light conversational content for use with digital assistants. Make sure that you keep this content on topic, geographically relevant and completely unique to you.

Use productivity tricks

There are plenty of useful productivity hacks aimed at helping professionals such as digital marketers, work more efficiently and to a higher standard.  From apps that help you to manage your time, to software that enables project work and group sharing of information.  Take advantage of some of these in the New Year.

Here are a few good ones:

• https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-search/id284815942?mt=8
• https://photomath.net/en/
• https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/clear-tasks-reminders-to-do/id493136154?mt=8
• https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/1password-password-manager/id568903335?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

Start social networking

If you haven’t already, 2016 is the perfect year to create social network accounts on the most popular sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Tumblr.

Develop an app

If your business doesn’t already have one, considering creating an app to work on tablets, androids, iPhones and iPads. Apps are beginning to replace mobile-friendly websites, usually they have all the functionality of the website and are much easier to use and navigate, encouraging customers to use it.

Think about wearable technology

though it may not be something everyone has right now, wearable technology such as the Apple Watch will surely gain popularity relatively quickly.   Marketers will need to consider this now and prepare for marketing in a new way, one that combines digital and traditional marketing.

Prepare yourself for an increase in advertising costs

In 2016 the cost of digital advertising, along with the volume of competition, will more than likely increase. A digital presence is extremely important so start saving now for this price increase and re-consider you advertising budget as appropriate.

Engage with users in real time

Create content that expires, for example use snapchat, and speak to users in real-time on social media sites such as twitter. If customers are able to communicate in real-time they automatically feel more connected.

Review your content from 2015

look at your most popular posts and blogs and understand why they were so popular.  Expand on the most popular posts by creating infographics out of them, for example.