As 2011 comes to a close, it’s time to evaluate the initiatives that went well, those that ended in spectacular failure and that which needs to be done moving forward to have your marketing department running at full-tilt early in the new year.

1) This year, social media marketing continued to spread like a wildfire. While it is a good way to knock on the door, it’s not the be-all and end-all of sales, marketing and/or life. It’s important to remember that social media works for you by driving traffic to your website where it can be converted into a sale not from your website to your Facebook page. A recent survey by Demandbase and Focus indicated that a company’s website was the top online source of new sales leads and seven times more effective than social media.

2) More important than being “social” (i.e., tweeting a frazillion times a day) is having something compelling to say. At its core, you’re targeting audiences that don’t want to be pitched. They’re on social networking sites just to use social networking sites. Furthermore, the average attention span ten years ago was 12 minutes long. Today, it’s somewhere in the ballpark of five minutes and seven seconds. It saddens me to report that younger people have shorter attention spans than the elderly so use opportunities to engage judiciously.

3) Don’t shoot for the baseline or just hope to hold on. In the coming year, plan to grow your business. In a recent survey, TD Bank asked 300 small business owners to identify their top New Year’s resolution for the coming year. 26% said spending more time on sales and marketing would be their top resolution. Periodically evaluate what works and what doesn’t and make changes as needed. Dream big and then come up with a plan on getting from point A to point B. Any and all milestones plotted along the way should be specific, achievable and measurable.

In 2012, be exceptional. Deliver on your promise in distributing goods and/or services that you’re proud of. That single piece of advice has remained true since people were trading cowries. When everything else around you is changing, this should guide your focus. Take the time to mull out where you want to go next year not where you want to be. Commit as best as you can to your resolutions whether they be work goals or personal ones. Achieve some no matter what. As Johann Wolfgang von Goethe says, “What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.”