It’s official- Facebook has become the most popular social networking site in America, edging out MySpace by a slim margin: 7.278 million U.S. users are now on Facebook, compared to 7.255 million using MySpace. To many, Facebook’s surge was inevitable, especially now that it offers one of the key features that differentiated the two sites: personalized URLS.

Over the weekend, over 5 million current users scrambled to get their hands on a vanity username- a feature already provided by MySpace.  Businesses with fewer than 1000 fans or users who created pages after May 31st, when the announcement was made, must wait until June 28th- next week- to register a username of their choice.

As it turns out, many popular companies have been using Facebook for a while. According to a 2008 study by Rosetta, 59% of the top 100 retailers maintain branded Facebook pages. Here are five companies you’ve probably already heard of that are harnessing the power of social media to build an online reputation:

1. Starbucks

The coffee giant uses Facebook as part of a successful online/offline marketing strategy.  Starbucks’ love for Facebook is mutual- Facebook recently announced Starbucks as one of three “Blue Ribbon Award” winners: companies with the “top most creative and innovative campaigns and most engaging pages each month.” (See #2 and #3 below for the other award recipients)

2. H&M

Also a Facebook award winner, the trendy discount clothing retailer has taken advantage of several different advertising tools on Facebook, helping boost it’s international and U.S. popularity.

3. Vitamin Water

The recent “Great Debate: Kobe vs. LeBron” campaign tied in television ads with a Facebook page asking fans to “state the case” for their choice in an online video.

4. Nutella

The fan-created page for the chocolate hazlenut spread ranked #3 on Facebook earlier this year- even though the company spent only $300,000 on advertising and didn’t even create the page itself.

5. Microsoft

Users with a Microsoft corporate e-mail address were among the first to be offered accounts when the service was extended beyond the student user base in 2006.  Microsoft also owns a small stake in Facebook, the purchase of which included the right to place ads on the site.

Facebook- and social networking in general- is becoming a very valuable tool for businesses of all sizes.  From corporate giants like Microsoft and Coca-Cola to smaller, local businesses, companies of all sizes are discovering the value of online marketing and social media.

If you need to improve your interactive marketing efforts, visit our quote center for online marketing services.

You can also follow us on Twitter where we provide the latest tools and resources for small business owners and entrepreneurs.

In the past year, Twitter has become one of the top online social sharing sites allowing people and companies to broadcast quick, daily snippets. Regular people as well as major celebrities and politicians use Twitter to keep their fans and followers updated on their everyday lives. The world’s top business executives are also using Twitter to keep members of the business community informed as to the state of their respective companies. And, if you follow them, you’ll be the first to know about business deals and events. Here are just some of the biggest names in business that are on Twitter.

1. Richard Branson

Richard Branson, 58, is a knighted, English industrialist estimated to be the 236th richest person in the world according to 2008’s Forbe’s magazine list of billionaires. He’s most famous for his Virgin brand, which now includes more than 360 companies, including Virgin Airways and Virgin Records. His estimated net worth comes out to approximately $2.5 billion USD. His flamboyant and eccentric style and his appearances in shows like The Colbert Report have gained him notoriety in the U.S. On Twitter, you can find out about his upcoming events and learn where to submit your questions to him.

2. Steve Case

Steve Case, 50, is an American business executive, most famous for being the co-founder and CEO of America Online. He gained major notoriety beyond the business world when he headed the merger the $164 billion merger between AOL and Time Warner in 2000, though the merger turned out to be highly problematic. Case resigned from Time Warner board of directors in 2005 and is now focused on working with Revolution LLC, a holding company he founded that same year. On Twitter, Case keeps his followers updated on board meetings and his opinions on the news of the day, from White House politics to the swine flu scare.

3. Kevin Rose

Robert Kevin Rose is a 32-year-old entrepreneur from Redding, California. He’s well known for having co-hosted The Screen Savers, a television show on TechTV, and for his Internet start-ups, the most famous of which is Digg.com, a social news website, where users can post up links to current news stories and comment on them. Stories on the site can be voted up or down. According to Rose, Twitter is a great way for him to quickly make company announcements and share interesting bits of information with people.

4. Tony Hsieh

Harvard graduate Tony Hsieh is the chief executive officer of Zappos.com, an online shoe, clothing, and accessories seller. Before helming Zappos, he sold an internet advertising network, LinkExchange, to Microsoft for $265 million. Hsieh uses Twitter to build a strong company culture and keep customers up to date on the latest Zappos offers and developments.

5. Jason Calacanis

Jason McCabe Calacanis, 38, is an American Entrepreneur who got his start as a blogger. His second online venture relied on the growing popularity of blogs and was eventually sold to AOL. Today, Calacanis runs the “user-powered” search engine Mahalo.com. This site lets people search for information in various categories including, sports, cars, news, entertainment, technology, health and travel. Calacanis says Twitter.com is useful, as it allows Mahalo to give its superfans news and information ahead of time to get their reactions and gauge what the general response to a new product or service might be.

6. Michael Arrington

J. Michel Arrington, 39, is the founder of TechCrunch, a blog that covers technology start ups in Silicon Valley and the field of technology throughout the U.S. He is mentioned often in magazines like Wired and Forbes as one most influential people when it comes to internet businesses and technology. He was also selected in 2008 as one of TIME’s most influential people. Arrington uses Twitter to post links to TechCrunch’s latest blogs.

7. Jack Dorsey

Dorsey, 32, is the creator and chief executive officer of Twitter. He is a software architect whom BusinessWeek called one of technology’s brightest entrepreneurs. Dorsey says that Twitter is the best way to get feedback from users on what the company is doing well and what it should do next.

8. Loic LeMeur

Loic LeMeur is a renouned French blogger. He was the vice president at Six Apart, a software company, after it merged with the blogging company Ublog. Le Meur served as advisor on Internet-related topics to Nicolas Sarkozy during the latter’s presidential run. Today, LeMeur is CEO of Seesmic, a provider of online conversation services. He uses Twitter to as a 24/7 source of feedback for business ideas.

9. Jonathan Schwartz

Jonathan Ian Schwartz is the president and CEO of Sun Microsystems, the company that developed the now universally used JAVA platform. Schwartz uses Twitter to stay in touch with the trends of the technology market, and to communicate with employees and clients.

10. Pierre Omidyar

Pierre Omidyar is the Iranian-American entrepreneur who founded the now internationally known auction website eBay. He is the 120th richest person in the world according to the March, 2008 issue of Forbes magazine. Omidyar uses Twitter to give followers updates on his day-to-day activities as well as business-related developments.

Follow @resourcenation and @betsybrottlund on twitter.

It depends how you do it.

Going to cocktail events and social hours, grabbing business cards and tossing yours around, brief handshakes while looking over that person’s shoulder for the door or the next person in the room.

Nope, that doesn’t work.

Connecting, helping others first, taking a sincere interest in them and their business, helping them see opportunities they may not see themselves.

That’s what I’m talking about.

And yes, it is work. Just like building any relationship, it requires commitment, follow up, and heart.

And it’s worth every minute.

Do you make networking a regular part of your business and marketing strategies?

Are you connecting in person (or over the phone if geography is a challenge) with people you meet online?

How are you contributing to your networking relationships? Just this morning, on a call with a colleague, I thumbed through my mental Rolodex for a connection that will help her grow her network and her business.

Easy, peasy, Japaneasy. It took about 5 minutes to make the connection and a warm introduction. She’s off and running, with gratitude, and I feel very good about it.

How’s that for honoring a “Givers Gain” philosophy?

How do you use networking in your business? How has it helped you? Tips to share?

Can I help it that I am smiling from ear to ear?  I have been floating on air for the last 24 hours.  Let me explain.  I have been telling our clients and writers alike to engage with our readers for quite sometime.  Of course, their response is “yes” then they never do anything about it, or should I say their response is “I never get anything out of it”.  Quite honestly, I wonder if people know what “Engage with your readers” really means.

I asked one of our clients to join every Social network they thought would have their target market and start engaging them in NON-sales copy.  If you are into online marketing, you can see the blank looks on their face.  You see, we are entering a second Internet phase; businesses are downsizing and trying to stretch every dollar looking for efficiency.  They’re shifting their budget from PPC, while using SEO for organic traffic.

What does that mean?  In simple terms, great content with a mix of social media. The new era of marketing, which created the foundations of marketing on the web, made its way to a new buzz in the industry - Inbound Marketing.

What Is Inbound Marketing?

Inbound Marketing focuses on bringing the customer to the business, instead of the business searching for the customer

In outbound marketing, the “traditional” way, companies use poorly targeted techniques to bring in customers.  They use radio and T.V. advertising, spam, cold-calling, print advertising, junk mail and more.  In other words, they use every method that most people get irritated about.

These techniques are long out-dated, less effective and more expensive, thanks to technology.  TiVo, spam filters, caller ID that blocks cold calls and tools like RSS render print and visual advertising almost useless.  While these methods of advertising still work to some extent, it’s much more expensive.

Inbound Marketing flips outbound marketing on its head.

The Internet opened up whole new avenues and marketing possibilities.  Instead of television ads that scream at potential customers to “buy, buy, buy”, or junk mail that gets thrown away, inbound marketing has a gentler, more persuasive technique.  Entertaining, informative videos, interesting blogs, useful content and tools – inbound marketing is a soft, inviting whisper rather than a pounding sledgehammer.  With these tools and techniques, highly qualified customers are attracted to the business through a combination of curiosity, confidence and trust.

The Three Components of a Successful Inbound Marketing Campaign

1.  Content:  Every Inbound Marketer knows that content is king.  Information and persuasive writing, helpful tips and tools help attract potential customers to the company’s website or business.

2.  Search Engine Optimization: Potential customers find this informative content much easier through SEO.  Building your site, and building up inbound links to your site, through optimization and website design “best practices” maximizes your search engine rankings.  SEO brings your product, website or company into the public’s eye, so they can begin the buying process.

3.  Social Media:  When the content is truly helpful, informative and interesting, people tend to discuss it with their friends, family, co-workers etc.  Distributed across several networks, it gains credibility and authenticity, making it more likely to draw people to your website.

You’re wondering what any of that has to do with the smile on my face?  In one day I was able to prove that using inbound marketing can not only save you money by getting free targeted traffic, but you learn that investing in your company’s future sometimes has it’s rewards without trying.

I was featured in Businessweek.com for engaging in Social media.  That alone has sent our website a nice boost of traffic.  I know I may not get all the business that‘s out there but, the way I see it nobody does. However, the new business I do get can result in a higher base of  happy customers, more referrals, and ultimately more sales.

Using social networking as a form of social media marketing is the new fad. Social networking refers to a multi-media social structure which essentially facilitates communication between groups, individuals, and organizations. The most commonly recognized social networking web sites include Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace. However, there are several more social networking web sites available. In addition to social networking sites, there are other ways to accomplish social media marketing through blogging, instant messaging, widgets, and more.

Companie use social networking to gain credibility, foster employee relationships, build a forum for communication with customers, and in most cases, boost sales. Company recruiters are even going to sites like LinkedIn to get access to the almost 25 million resumés posted.

If you are going to jump on the social networking bandwagon, make sure you have a strategy in place for your business or work with an online marketing agency before you spend the time creating a Facebook or MySpace page. Let’s take a look at some of the companies using social networking and which tools they are utilizing.

• Absolut Vodka – uses an online video ABSOLUTworld as well as a page on Facebook entitled Top Bartender
• Acura – has a Facebook page, Acura TSX Connect as well as a widget on Yahoo, Acura RDX Traffic
• Adidas – utilizes social networks on MySpace
• American Express – has a blog entitled OPEN Forum
• American Red Cross – has a blog entitled Red Cross Chat
• AT&T – participates in Microblogging on Twitter: ATTNews, ATTblueroom, and OnwardSmallBiz. Also, AT&T has a YouTube video, Share AT&T, allows Photosharing at Flickr photostream, and has a fan page on Facebook
• Bank of America – has two social networking pages: Small Business Community on Clearspace and  Medal Me! on Facebook
• Best Buy – participates in Blogging: CMO’s Barry Judge’s blog and Barry Judge on Twitter. Also, Best Buy has a Geek Squad HQ video on YouTube and a social network created to allow retail employees to support each other (Blue Shirt Nation)
• Boeing – participates in Blogging:  Randy’s Journal and Tanker Facts
• Burton - utilizes Microblogging with storedotburton on Twitter
• CNN - utilizes Microblogging on Twitter: Political Ticker
• Coca-Cola – has a Facebook social networks (Sprite Sips and CokeTag) as well as blogs: Coca-Cola Conversations. Coca-Cola also utilizes virtual worlds on Second Life: Virtual Thirst and widgets, such as Coke Bubbles
• Dell – participates in a lot of Blogging, such as Direct2Dell, Nine official internal blogs, and Ideastorm. Dell also Microblogs with 22 corporate accounts on Twitter
• Ernst & Young – utilizes Facebook for hiring: Careers page
• General Electric – participates in Blogging: From Edison’s Desk
• Google – has several blogs, including their Official Blog and over 30 other corporate blogs. Google also has a You Tube video Google channel
• H&R Block – Microblogs with a Twitter account and has a social networking Facebook fan page
• Motorola – utilizes Blogging with their Broadband Insights blog
• Oscar Mayer – has a Hotdogger blog to give fans an insider look at the Wienermobile.  Oscar Mayer also utilizes Microblogging with their Wienermobile page on Twitter and uses Photosharing at The Wienermobile In The Wild
• Peace Corps – participates in Microblogging with a Peace Corps Twitter account
• Pizza Hut – uses social networking web sites, such as Facebook: pizza hut fan page
• Revlon – utilizes widgets, such as Lash Fantasy
• Saturn – makes use of social networks, for example ImSaturn
• Southwest Airlines – participates in Blogging (Nuts About Southwest) as well as Microblogging (SouthwestAir). Southwest also has an online video at YouTube channel. They also allow photo sharing at Flickr group and they have Widgets (Ding!)
• Starbucks – participates in crowd-sourcing at My Starbucks Idea and Microblogging at Twitter account

If you are a small business and looking for an online marketing agency to help with your social networking campaign, visit Resource Nation’s vendor center for online marketers.

The internet marketing industry is still very young and evolving rapidly.  Small business owners don’t have the time to keep up with the latest trends and tactics, especially in regards to seo, ppc and social media.  The result is that professionals in the field hold the responsibility to educate, inform and lead their clients in a direction that provides the best opportunity for success.

The process of guiding the client in the right direction has a few required steps.

1. Do your due diligence in regards to the client, the industry and their competition.

2. Listen to the business owner and try to get a sense of what it’s like to be in their shoes.

3. Re-evaluate your understanding of what makes the business tick based off of your learnings.

4. Educate.

5. Strategize the best course of action.  Does the client need SEO, PPC, both, etc?  Will social media work?  What budget is required?

6. Implement campaigns.

7. Show the value of your hard work to the client (preferably with success metrics

8. Re-evaluate the direction of campaigns based off of measurements.

9. Re-educate.

10. Course correct and repeat steps 7 - 10.

Notice the theme of re-evaluting.  We all have a tendency to hold on to our preconceived notions, but forcing ourselves to take a step back often will improve perspective.  This holds true both as we understand our clients’ businesses better and as we practice what we preach by adapting to the ever changing world of internet marketing.

In the end, the client should know their business best.  But does their understanding correlate to the ever changing online world?  My advice is to simply be up front and clear.  Don’t be afraid to say “I disagree.  In my experience this technique would work best online” and explain why.  It takes a rare breed to push back on someone who writes your check, but that is one of the differences between constantly finding new business or making the relationships you have last.

Visit Resource Nation’s online marketing expert business directory to find experts to help with your project.

Businesses looking to make inroads online could learn a great deal from the social networking employed by the Barack Obama campaign for President of the United States. Ever since he took on Hilary Clinton and won in a stunning upset once thought impossible by political pundits, Obama and his team (including 24-year-old Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes) have used social networking and online marketing techniques to mobilize their forces, get donations and spread the word about the candidate and his message.

In January, Obama set a record for donations in one month by raising a total of $32 million dollars, $28 million of which was raised online. From these $28 million in online contributions, 90% were under $100, with over 250,000 contributors (source). In February, Obama didn’t attend one single fundraiser and still managed to raise $55 million online.

How did the Obama team do it? Here are several key elements to the social networking aspect of the campaign.

The website. Obama’s official website (www.barackobama.com) has a strong social networking element. The site is filled with ways for supporters to share information and learn about speeches and gatherings in their area. After spending just a few minutes on the website, it is easy to see that it was created by professionals who understand the importance of interactivity and a strong user interface. With every piece of content comes the opportunity to make a donation.

The tools. The Obama website gives users a lot of options for customization. The site provides tools for supporters to hold their own meetings and fundraisers – setting the guidelines to help run the events, but allowing each individual to determine how much money they wish to ask for and the style of the event.

The email campaigns. At organized Obama events, supporters are only asked for an email address, not a donation. Those who sign up to be on the official Obama for President mailing list receive smart, highly coordinated emails several times a week. These emails are geo-targeted on many occasions to alert the individual about upcoming events in their area. The emails also have a personal feel, sporting a relaxed style of writing and are often penned by the candidate, his chiefs of staff or even his wife Michele.

Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. No politician has run for office during the heyday of the major social networking sites, but Obama really has no fear when it comes to using these entities to further his cause. Check into Facebook and you will find the official Obama group and thousands of like-minded groups. Get over to Twitter and you can follow every move the candidate makes as he crisscrosses the country. Even MySpace is filled with efforts to spread the word among voters who are likely taking part in their first election. The campaign understands the limited resources of young Americans, and asks for only small donations on these sites.

The access. Unlike his competitor John McCain, Barack Obama has been an active part of his online campaigns. He writes his own emails and creates exclusive videos just for his online supporters. The result is an immediacy and personal nature to his campaign that few candidates will ever match.

Whether or not Obama wins the presidency in November, he and his outstanding online marketing team have changed the way politicians reach out to the American public and generate funds for their campaign. By knowing the ins and outs of the most current, most popular forms of online marketing, he has set an example not only for future candidates, but businesses that want to target customers with pinpoint accuracy and build their brand online via email, website and social marketing techniques.