I learned a lot in 2011, both about my life and my profession. Mostly, I’ve come to appreciate how work is more than just being satisfied with what you complete at the end of the day. It’s also about relationships, creative expression, stability, intellectual freedom, and yes, being satisfied with all you get done by 5 PM (or sometimes 6 PM).

I’ve also come to appreciate the sense of stability that has come back to our industry. It’s given our word of mouth team a chance to take all we’ve learned since social media transformed the scene a few years ago and change it into a formula, a practice, and a system that works for us. We’ve learned some great lessons throughout the year, some the hard way.

So we thought we’d share them all with you. After all, there’s no better way to kick off a new year than to look back on all you’ve learned in the previous year. Here’s 10 Social Media Lessons from 2011.

1. There’s no such thing as over-preparing. There IS such a thing as under-preparing and it’ll bite you in the butt.
2. Updating or tweeting every 5 seconds will not solidify your expertise. It will just annoy people.
3. There’s nothing worse than a huge block of text. Break it up! Bullet points, headers, and pics are good things.
4. Sometimes campaigns don’t go as well as planned. Do your best to fix the problem and then MOVE ON.
5. Don’t stress out over things you cannot control.
6. Think outside the Internet. Learn all there is to know about marketing.
7. Surround yourself with a team you trust. You can’t do it all by yourself.
8. Let your team be accountable for their own work. Mistakes made are lessons learned, and autonomy equals trust.
9. Sometimes you have to buck up and do that one thing you simply don’t want to do.
10. Sometimes the only thing people want to hear from a company is, “I’m Sorry.”