If you’re not using social media to market your business, you may be missing out. In fact, in recent surveys most major businesses plan on using social media as their number one marketing tactic. Social sites have tremendous power to grow your business. As the New Year approaches, consider making a resolution to launch a successful social media campaign for your business. Here’s how:

Step One: Identify your target audience

It’s important to make sure you have a solid understanding of who you’re marketing to and where they hang out online. For example, if you’re an artist and your audience is primarily young people on the cutting edge of art and music, you may want to focus your social media campaign on sites like MySpace and Facebook. If your customers are primarily business executives then LinkedIn may be your site of choice.

Step Two: Identify how much time you have to commit to your social media campaign

Social media campaigns aren’t generally complicated but they do take time. The bulk of your activities may rest in actually interacting with others on your social site of choice. This may mean spending an hour a day on Facebook or Twitter. Decide how much time you have before you create your plan. Also, consider creating a monetary budget. You may want to buy advertising on the social site, purchase a custom profile and hire an assistant to manage your profile for you.

Step Three: Identify your goals

Before you begin a social media campaign it’s important to identify what you want to accomplish with your efforts. Do you want to drive traffic? Do you want to grow your lead list? What about increasing sales? Your goals will help you create a plan. Your goals will help you follow through and use social media to its fullest capability.

Step Four: Choose your sites and create an account

It’s recommended to start with one site. This is because it can take time to build a strong following. If your attention is divided between many social sites, you may not receive the fullest benefit. Choose your site, create an account and begin interacting.

Make sure your profile and your interactions support your goals. For example, if your goal is to drive traffic to your website, then you’ll want to include posting links to new content on your website as part of your regular interactions. A note of warning…social media is about interacting. If you only promote your business then you’re going to struggle to achieve your goals. Promotion needs to be part of a larger plan to connect with your audience.

Step Five: Test and track your efforts

Make sure you’ve created a measurable goal. Test and track your efforts. If you want to drive traffic to your site, use analytics to find out how many visitors are coming from your social media interactions.

Launching a social media campaign is a worthwhile New Year’s Resolution. Social media offers a number of business-building benefits and it can be quite fun. Here’s to a happy and successful New Year!