• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, March 28, 2011

Women's media network SheKnows is expected to debut a new social media platform Monday dubbed SheKnows Connect.

With the new platform, SheKnows hopes to better integrate its content and community, allowing conversations to begin around news stories, columns and other various features. "The SheKnows audience connects around passion points," said Kyle Cox, vice president/GM of SheKnows. "With SheKnows Connect, we are better engaging users on site around content."

In addition, strengthening community relationships has been shown to benefit ad partners. A recent study conducted by BlogHer found that blogs are more than two times more likely -- 63% -- than magazines -- 26% -- to have inspired a beauty product purchase over the last six months.

Another component of the relaunch is the SheKnows Dares initiative, which will encourage users to "dare" themselves to be better. By incorporating SheKnows Connect with Facebook Connect, users can accept and complete all manner of dares. They can also challenge their friends via Facebook to do the same.

"With SheKnows Dares, we are encouraging the community to get involved to create an experience -- not only on SheKnows but within their social networks on and offline," Cox added.

Later this year, the company also plans to launch a product centered around the SheKnows CityGuide, as well as a pregnancy and parenting product allowing women to share the different stages of motherhood.

Along with larger players like NBCU's iVillage, the Meredith Women's Network, and Glam Media, SheKnows competes against a long list of smaller players, including, BlogHer, Total Beauty, and Sugar Inc.

Owned by Evolve Media Corp., SheKnows claims to reach over 50 million unique visitors, citing Google Analytics data.