5. Invest a Set Amount of Time Each Day or Week to Social Media – Of course it’s nice to have a blog or a presence on Facebook®, MySpace®, and Twitter® where you can have a direct dialog with your customers and prospects, but these marketing vehicles, while not needing a lot of start-up time, should have a dedicated human capital investment. Sure it’s a lot of fun to set up the look of your site – picking complementary colors, pictures, and the latest font design – but just like the leather scent of a new car quickly losing its smell after a few months, your new blog will soon need regular upkeep and maintenance. If social media has, or will have a place in your marketing plans, make sure someone in your organization is responsible for its upkeep or hire a competent ad agency, with its own full-time social media personnel, to keep abreast of pertinent social media trends, your competition’s activities, and to perform ongoing updates for yo