If you decide to embark on a social marketing campaign, it pays to have your blog content carefully planned and written but not published before you commence marketing. Marketing, social marketing included, should be planned with a strategy in place that is leading to a conclusion. For example, if you are planning a product launch, you could commence your marketing prior to the launch. You can plan how you are going to approach each day leading up to the launch,

Google have made it possible to embed books into your website and judging from the number of applications available and the open source API, your should be able to embed books into your Facebook or Myspace pages as well. With every new addition to web technology, the first thing many marketers do is look for any marketing angle in the technology. Will embedded books have any social marketing value?

Do you personalize your social marketing? By personalize I mean include either a photo of yourself or a well designed avatar that represents your business. I am frequently surprised to see individuals using avatars from the sites they are on to represent themselves. Designing a clever avatar has several benefits to social marketing. The first of course is if it is memorable, people will come to identify with it. In a crowd of avatars,

BlogWorld Expo is on at the moment and there are several places running commentary on what's happening. WebProNews has a good summary of the events, one of which caught my eye. It reports on Don Crowther, founder of SMARTS, and his views on using social media to bring traffic to your Web sites. He quoted some interesting figures.

Social media seems to be going through a phase of shakeups and shakeouts at present. StumbleUpon has recently made some changes and this followed Facebooks big change to profile pages. There are still a lot of mumblings and grumblings about those changes. This last week has seen Yahoo! introducing a new look to their MyYahoo! pages, it seems it may include new features and new functionality. The latest to go through some changes is Twitter. Like most of the other changes,

Here at Social Marketing Journal, we are avid fans of reading some of the top blogs within the industry and gaining constant knowledge of what works and doesn't work within social media as well as what is currently in the headlines. The best way to learn about any given subject is to read, read, read! While SMJ is a great resource for social media information, we can't help but encourage the other amazing blogs that keep us reading on a weekly basis.

We wrote a little while ago about the changes to StumbleUpon and the way friends and subscribers would change. It seems they have finally completed the changes according to the SU Blog . Starting tomorrow,

We live in a fickle society so what is 'hot' one day will be turn out to be 'so yesterday' the next. Generally speaking, trends come in waves and last more than one day. To be successful with social marketing, to need to be able to capitalize on what is 'hot' at any given period. To make matters a little more confused, what is considered hot on one site should not always be accepted as a general trend.

A press release from ShareThis reports on a new study by Forrester Consulting )commissioned by ShareThis(. Some of the statistics reported make for interesting reading and possible further analysis with respect to social marketing activities. A long held belief by many website owners, particularly bloggers, is that social bookmarking is not about sharing information found, it is more about self promotion. Some of these statistics may back this up.

If users have had doubts in the past, it seems they have been answered. According to Facebook, they are not a social networking utility, rather they are "a social utility that connects you with the people around you". TechCrunch has a post related to a Facebook account that was deactivated and the email received )they received an email?( related to the accounts deletion. The circumstances admittedly are not your standard events.

Linkedin announced earlier this month a collaboration with CNBC. As part of the announcement, L inkedin' blog stated: This collaboration includes CNBC integrating LinkedIn's community and networking functionality into CNBC.com, enabling users to share and discuss news with their professional networks. The collaboration has several benefits for the Linkedin community.

You can do it on Youtube, you can even do it on Facebook, now you can do it on Myspace. One of the downsides to Myspace has been the video sections. Sure, you could load up videos, but you couldn't record direct. Now you can. Myspace have finally joined their competitors in allowing users to save videos recorded 'live' from their web cams. It is strange it has taken so long for Myspace to incorporate the feature. However, with the advent of Myspace Music,

Myspace Music is set to open its doors sometime this month, soon apparently, and given the features it will quickly become a magnet for advertisers. The site will offer the entire catalogs of Universal, SonyBMG, and Warner Music; that's around 77% of the entire US music market. Myspace Music will make all the music they have in catalog available free to listen, so long as you don't mind the ads. With free jukebox like that,

Blogs tend to have it easy when it comes to socializing. They have a comments area where visitors can add their words of wisdom; bloggers can reply; and the whole gets to see the interaction. Web pages, on the other hand, don't have it so easy - at least that is what most website owners think. A sites web design can include social interaction options. These may be a simple email communication with the most pertinent being published on the site. The more comments published,

If you haven't visited Squidoo or researched them then your first observation may be that it is one large magazine, or catalog. One area that many smart people are using Squidoo for is social marketing. Squidoo is a strange site. It's a little bit Facebook, a little bit Myspace and perhaps a little bit Hub Pages. Anyone can create a page )called a lens( on Squidoo and it can be on any topic you like.

The most important component of any marketing campaign, social marketing included, is the research and planning that is done prior to starting. Your whole campaign relies on collecting the right information, putting it into the correct perspective, and formatting plans based on how you interpret that information. One piece of information that is vital is to know and understand the market and reach of your proposed social marketing vehicle.

Three unrelated articles on WebProNews caught my attention today. Whilst unrelated, together they send a clear message, particularly to those who are in business. The first article discussed the current aversion to social media and social marketing by a majority of business owners, a point I will return to shortly. The other two articles may need to be taken with more than passing attention, not because of the content contained, but the ramifications.

Facebook has been getting up the noses of a few people just lately by shutting down profiles without warning. Now they are about to roll out the new upgrades across the board. I know there are many users who are happy with the new look, there are also many that are not. For those that are not happy, there are no smiles in sight. Facebooks' announcement stated: Throughout the next week, we'll actively migrate all our users to the new profile.

Twitter' recent decision to add the 'nofollow' tag to bio's has met with a lot of discussion. Most of it has centered around Matt Cutts role in the whole affair. Perhaps a full disclosure from Twitter on why they made the change could help clear the air. The decision itself has two sides. Matt Cutts in his response to the criticism of his involvement does make at least one valid point, that of spamming.

We reported a little while ago the antics at Facebook and how they are deleting accounts without warning or reason. Twitter is turning nofollow by, it seems, the request of Google. Now, Bebo is changing peoples profile name without warning or explanation. Andy Beal revealed today that his Bebo details had been changed. Let this be a warning. Don't ever rely 100% on your social networking profile for brand building.