John Jantsch has a great piece on his blog, Duct Tape Marketing, about the use of social networking tools in marketing efforts if you go here. He argues that different social networking tools build on one another in a hierarchy, and that your efforts will be more effective if you start at the beginning and build on them as you go along.

This is an interesting way of looking at social networking and marketing efforts. I think there’s a lot of emphasis on using social networking tools so libraries can prove they’re “Library 2.0” – and that’s great it you have a plan and the infrastructure to support it. Effective marketing isn’t just throwing every new tool against the wall to see what sticks, it’s making a plan and looking at what elements will move that plan forward.

This is a great, fun site, BTW, which contains articles, links, resources and podcasts with a lot of practical information. It’s definitely on my read list.