10: Ask Followers a Question of the Day—This is challenging, sure, but it’ll give your brain a workout, especially if you have a variety of clients. The question can really be anything, but try and keep it “on brand” as often as possible. You’ll be giving yourself and your followers a break from mundane pitches and requests for business. Plus, of course, you’ll be ensuring that your social media network feeds are interactive, which is the foundation of the success of the medium to begin with.

9: Mix in Text-Only Posts on Facebook—They’re getting more Reach these days than anything with hash tags, pictures, or links because Facebook’s algorithms are perceiving those as banner signs that you’re promoting a business, which they would like you to pay for the privilege of doing. These text-only statuses shouldn’t be posted often, but should find themselves onto your clients’ feeds once in a while.

8: Do More in Real Time—There are more drawbacks of queuing up the majority of your posts and tweets now than there were before as there are some newer functions and features that cannot be utilized through scheduling. If you load a photo into Twitter and send it out immediately, the picture shows up much more conspicuously in feeds now and without the follower needing to click on a link to view it. On Facebook, increase your post clickability by creating photo albums that users will want to peak through. These cannot be loaded and scheduled on Hootsuite.

7: Mix in More Fun Stuff—“Social Media Marketing? Everybody’s doing it…” There’s a lot of “noise” in peoples’ feeds now with innumerable businesses catching on to the importance of social media as a vital marketing tool. Get your clients’ posts and tweets to stand out by making them a little more entertaining than the rest. Don’t make everything you send out there a plea for patronage.

6: Conduct Trivia Contests—Want an easy way to prove a return on investment? Find out what your client might be willing to offer as a free prize to social media users, ask followers a trivia question and connect a call to action instructing them to use the answer as a password when they directly interact with your clients’ business and look to claim their prize.

5: Read More About the Social Media Marketing Business and What Others Are Doing—This is an exciting time in human history with technology moving at top speed. The advent of social media and, thus, the occupation of social media manager are tremendous parts of the changes we’ve experienced over the past decade. There are seemingly limitless possibilities to what we can do, so draw inspiration on how you can improve your own work from your peers.

4: Ease Up on the Hash Tagging—It has a function, yes, but when done excessively, it just looks desperate.

3: Ask for More Money—There’s been a growth in demand and we’re becoming specialists. 2014 can be the year social media managers become a more highly appreciated cog in a business’ marketing department. Don’t settle for a pittance.

2: Be Dynamic—You’re going to get bored with posting the same thing over and over again and your followers will get bored of seeing such posts. Change things up often.

1: Not Worry About Facebook Reach Statistics—Facebook keeps tightening their algorithms. Post Reach stats are down and businesses are being “forced” to purchase ads. It is what it is. The social media manager has to evolve just like any other worker has had to in the past. Paid Facebook ads still need to be cleverly crafted, well-written, and aesthetically pleasing. Not everyone can do that as well as you can. So, adjust, do your best, and, perhaps, try and find other, less restrictive networks to market through, like Pinterest, Tumblr, and more. If you put good content out on the Interwebs for people to consume, then the rest will take care of itself.

Michael Stahl is a journalist, social media manager & strategist. Hailing from Astoria, New York, his articles and essays have appeared in several online and print publications. He is currently accepting new social media clients, so if you’d like to procure his services, contact him at mrstahl7@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter too @MichaelRStahl.