Keep Up On LinkedIn

Despite your best intentions, it’s possible you haven’t been keeping up with your company’s LinkedIn profile. This year, dedicate yourself to regular maintenance – following others, posting status updates, interacting with other users and more.

Try Something New

Get off on the right foot by trying a brand new network! If you’re already on Facebook and Twitter, check out newcomers Yo or the ad-free Ello or launch an account on a popular photo sharing site such as Instagram, SnapChat or Pinterest. Stay tuned for more in-depth posts on these new networks.

Change Your Passwords

Keep your accounts secure by changing your passwords frequently (if you don’t already, commit to changing them at least a couple of times a year – more is even better!). Opt for a combination of letters, numbers and symbols and record it somewhere safe just in case you forget. Having a different, secure password for each network is often recommended.

Engage More

Engaging and interacting with others puts the social in social media. Get on there and get active ASAP – you’ll be surprised by what you learn about yourself, your business and your potential and current customers.

Use Twitter’s Mute Function

Twitter added the ability to mute users in 2014. This means that you can follow as many users as you like, including courtesy followbacks, without having to scroll through their tweets in your feed. Win-win.

If you make one of these 5 social media New Year’s resolutions, you’re guaranteed to boost your business’s online presence in 2015. From keeping your accounts secure to trying out new functions and networks, engaging with users and keeping up on LinkedIn, you’ll want to follow through.

Image Credit: Resolving to Write More – A Worthy Thought by Carol VanHook, via Flickr, CC License, no changes made

Delving into the nitty-gritty, Instagram is a photography application and social network that is available primarily on mobile devices. Users can download the app to their smartphones for free and begin snapping and editing photographs right away. Accounts can also be accessed online from a desktop computer, laptop or tablet.

Getting started is as simple as downloading the app and filling out the registration form. While all accounts are public, the privacy option allows users to dictate who can see their photos. You can upload a profile picture, short biography and website link. Since Instagram is still mainly a mobile thing, staying in the loop is easy with smartphone notifications.

The social aspect of this platform is undeniably captivating. Like Pinterest, another popular image sharing site we’ve discussed, users can follow and tag one another, comment on and “like” photographs and use the “@” symbol to mention others. Instagram is compatible with Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr, Foursquare, Weibo, Mixi and more. This allows you to share photos on your other profiles quickly and simultaneously.

Instagram is known for its broad selection of filters, which are applied to photographs in order to alter their appearance. Filters can be used to make images appear vintage, brighter, black and white, textured, professional and the list goes on. “Earlybird,” one of the top filters of 2013, adds rounded edges, while “Valencia” gives photos a faded, vintage quality. Each filter includes an optional border. A lesser-known but just as exciting feature is tilt-shift editing. This allows smartphone photographers to selectively focus certain areas of an image, altering (by appearance) the depth of field.

But wait, there’s more! Budding directors and actors are sure to enjoy Instagram video. In a similar fashion to Twitter’s Vine, users can record and share short video clips. Though Vine’s clips are limited to 6 seconds, Instagram videos can be up to 15 seconds long. True to style, users can add a video-specific filter to their finished product.

Instagram’s web presence has seen dramatic improvements lately. Today, users can do pretty much everything but upload photos and videos, which still requires the use of the mobile app. This includes editing and viewing profiles, commenting, liking and tagging others. Having rolled out web profiles in early November, we expect this social platform to continue to skyrocket in terms of useability and popularity.

Image Credit: The Phoblographer