We drill it in, and we drill it in, but still, doing your own social marketing can be a bit overwhelming because there is so much to learn for a novice. That’s where a Social Marketing Company comes in handy.

We can help you do everything you need: Get your blogs up and running, write your content, get you on the social bookmarking sites and more. Most importantly we’ll get you up and running on MySpace and Facebook and keep them maintained for you.

What are you waiting for? Contact us today and let us get started helping you out with the world of social marketing.

There was a great post over at WebProNews yesterday about how to measure your social marketing success.

Basically it boils down to each measure has to be tailored to the project, and you need your project to have a purpose and not exist just to exist. Do you want to inform? Get new clients? All of this is very important so you know how to measure how well you did since there is no universal way to do it.

So before you launch in to anything, you need to know where you want to go with it. If you lack direction, and just do something to do it, you’ll never be able to measure it.

Never mind that Facebook keeps taking heat over their Beacon announcements in the newsfeeds, it seems that MySpace still thinks it’s a good idea to follow their closest competitor’s lead. According to numerous sites, such as Marketing Pilgrim, MySpace will soon be launching “Friends Updates” which will clutter up your home page even more.

I’m not sure why MySpace feels the need to play follow-the-leader with their second place competition, but they are for whatever reason. Add on top of this that MySpace has zero design sense, this will probably turn in to an even uglier mess than the site already is. Not much you can do though as it is still the number one social site out there.

Microsoft has invested in Facebook…

Microsoft is bringing a form of scoial networking to their Xbox 360 gaming platform…

Could we see an integration between the two? Could you possibly start reaching millions of males 18 - 34, the most desirable demographic for spending dollars? Only time will tell, but keep your eye on December 4th when the Xbox 360 receives its new feature.

It may seem like a strange idea, but have you considered advertising your social marketing?

What I mean is, have you advertised your profiles? You sign up with someone like Enhance Interactive, place a few low cost ads, and start building up your networks. The people who will click through are apt to add you because it costs them nothing, and then you will have even more people to market to.

And, if you registered a domain name to forward through GoDaddy like I suggested, then you may also pick up impressions as opposed to click-thrus. Just make the domain name prominent in the ad, and hopefully at least a few people will type it in manually, or remember to come back and check it when they have more time.

Back on Friday we talked about a controversial post that showed up on TechCrunch this week. The author of that original post, Dan Ackerman Greenberg , has now asked TechCrunch to allow him to follow it up and how he does not endorse the actions he talked about, he was just trying to educate the world that those things happen.

Whatever the case may be, the damage to Mr. Greenberg’s reputation has been done. People will find the original post, but that does not mean they will find his follow up. He claims that he is a victim of poor editing, but from my own experiences with editing, there would have had to of been a far more extensive editing than I have ever seen to make him sound the way he did.

And that’s the lesson to be learned here: Before you do anything online, especially in a highly visible location, ask yourself if it could be taken in any sort of negative light. The Internet is a massive place, and people sometimes people think, “Oh, no one will ever find this”, and you couldn’t be more wrong. Think twice before you post ANYTHING on the web.

MySpace profile addresses are not the prettiest thing to type out on a business card or promotional flyer. Why not get a domain name?

No, I am not insane.

Go to some place like Go Daddy and register a domain name like “MyCompaniesMySpace.com” and then set up what’s called a “domain redirect”. You will paste your normal MySpace URL into the redirect box, and then any time anyone uses the domain you registered, it takes them directly to your social profile. This works with every type of web page and is easy to set up.

Think of all the places you can put such a simple domain name, increasing your social marketing by leaps and bounds.

Over on the Blog Marketing Journal today, we discussed this post that popped up on TechCrunch yesterday. As we said in the other post, this has become quite the controversial post, and since it covers viral marketing, it seems appropriate you all go and read it as a guide as to what NOT to do.

Only two things struck me as correct.

That was about it. Otherwise I would say read this list… then do the exact opposite.

Remember how we said a while back that Facebook would now show your interactions with companies in your news feed? Yeah… that may not have been the best idea.

MoveOn.org, who is mainly known for its controversial political ads, has released an open letter to its members over how Facebook is violating people’s privacy with their new “Beacon” service. Since the service is an “opt out” situation as opposed to “opt in”, users have to make an effort to not show private information such as what movie they bought tickets for. An example they give in the letter:

“It’s easy to picture serious consequences: A college student buying a ticket to Brokeback Mountain and his homophobic football teammates finding out on Facebook. Or a battered woman buying a ticket to see Violence Behind Closed Doors when she told her husband she’s working an extra shift. Or a not-so-friendly employer learning a staffer has bought a ticket to a screening of Living With AIDS.” - Mike R.

While extreme examples, they raise a valid point. Why should this matter to you? Until the dust settles, and there is a negative light being cast on the service, I would recommend NOT being one of the partner sites. I would imagine if Facebook doesn’t make a move on this in the very near future, groups such as MoveOn may start trying to apply pressure to the participating companies.

While you may get some short-term promotional play from having your name show up in the feeds, is it worth it in the long run for the negative connotations people are going to have in their minds?

Sometimes you think the world has enough social networking opportunities, but then one you would have never dreamed of pops up.

ArtOfTheCookie.com is a social network run by Pepperidge Farm… yes… THAT Pepperidge Farm. With the tagline “Connecting Through Cookies”, the site is about women building friendships and then maintaining them.

While I’m not sure if there is really a business opportunity here for you to market yourself, this was just to far out in left field not to mention. Sure, no one can begrudge people making better friendships, but you’re bonding… through cookies? Okay then, well… good luck with that.

How many of you out there knew there are social networks just for the cell phone community? Come on, show of hands… I don’t see many hands going up. Then you probably didn’t know there are already 45 million people doing this, did you? What about the predictions that by 2010 there will be 175 million people doing it?

Sure, MySpace and Facebook may be where everything is at now, but even MySpace is going mobile, and Facebook is integrating with phones more and more. Are you ready? Do you know how to write short ads easily readable on a phone screen? Technology is constantly changing, and as people use the phones more and more, as they do in Japan for everything, it’s going to be important that you are ready. Isn’t it better you start looking now than in 2010?

Social Marketing and Social Media Optimization will always be important on the Internet, but it’s best you prep for the coming onslaught of doing it on the cell phones also.

There are conflicting stories regarding that Facebook may be looking to purchase the Chinese social network, Zhanzuo.com. The story broke over the weekend, but is now being denied by Facebook.

That’s not really the point of this post though. The question is if social marketing can extend to foreign countries. It’s sometimes easy to forget that the Internet is NOT English only, it just feels that way some days. American sites such as MySpace and Google have tried getting footholds in the Chinese marketplace, but it has been difficult. If, and that’s a big “if”, Facebook was to go this route, it would be the wisest idea.

The Asian mindset is very different than the Western one. It can be very difficult for marketers used to dealing with Americans to know hot to position their brand in the Asian markets. If one of the big social networks wants to open up shop in China, the best idea is going to be buying an established brand that has already made headway there. Keeping the existing staff would also be essential to continue the momentum.

How does this affect you? Well, while most people would require a translator, you can usually find a reasonably priced one on GetAFreelancer.com, but if you feel your ready to expand into foreign markets, wouldn’t the familiar social networking route make sense?

You know, this may sound crazy, but if the current Writer’s Guild of America strike may actually be a boon to YouTube.

If the strike lasts much longer, prime time television shows will run out of finished episodes they can air, and where will entertainment starved people turn to? Yes, the Internet. There could be a lot of new traffic coming in to the popular video sharing site if this happens, so why shouldn’t you be there?

We’ve talked numerous times about creating viral videos and putting them on YouTube to advertise your company, so wouldn’t an increase in traffic make it even more worth your time? Even if this doesn’t come to pass, you should have videos out there any way for the normal, everyday traffic the site gets.

While certainly no one wants to profit from misfortune, it is never a good idea to pass up a potential opportunity.

On the heels of me saying yesterday how I hate how the media treats Facebook, it happens again today.

Jimmy Wales, the founder of the ultra-popular Wikipedia, was at a conference in South Africa, and talking about his new company, Wikia, something got revealed. They are working on some sort of search engine, but buried in his slides was what appeared to be a Facebook profile at fist blush. Mr. Wales is now being cagey about what that was, but the rumor is that Wikipedia may turn in to some sort of social network. Course every one is calling this a “Facebook killer”, but what can you do?

The reason this is big news is the tens of millions of people who already use Wikipedia, and like it’s style. If this turns out to be true, and they auto-convert their users… that would make for one heck of a social network launch on the first day. I am sure there will be more news on this in the coming weeks and months.

With all the talk about Facebook, you would think they have already run off with the crown as the kind of social networks, but they haven’t. Marketing Pilgrim had a break down of the latest numbers from Nielsen, and it shows MySpace is still the king of traffic.

For the month of October, MySpace had a mind boggling 58.8 million unique visitors to Facebook’s 19.5 million. With the way the media lavishes love on Facebook, you’d think the numbers would be much closer together, but at nearly three times the visitors, you can see it’s not even close.

The percent of growth is even misleading as it shows Facebook grew by 125% and MySpace only grew by 19%. While some folks seem to be focusing on this number, I feel it’s misleading. Sure, 125% is impressive, but if you have far less members than your competition, isn’t it easier to achieve that number?

I am certainly not slamming on Facebook, I just don’t get the insane amount of attention it’s getting. So long as they are both big though, you might as well be using them in your marketing!