Facebook allows companies, organizations, or individuals to start groups and fan pages to make it easier for Facebook users to keep up with all your news and upcoming events.

A couple of months ago they came out with widgets that you can add to your website. You can see an example of a Facebook widget on the side of this blog. It shows all the users that are a fan of RAGE Software and lets any blog reader to quickly become a fan as well.

Macworld.com recently published an article describing how to Integrate an iWeb website with Facebook.

It shows you how to add Facebook widgets to your iWeb site using HTML snippets. It also shows you how to get your RSS Feed on your Facebook page. This means all of your blog posts can automatically be added to your wall or fan page. There are many widgets to choose from, so it’s definitely worth a look to see what is available.

It’s a great article to read over if you would like to keep your facebook friends or fans updated on your website news and events.

Combined with the free iWeb SEO Tool to optimize your website for search engines, and Sitemap Automator, to get your website listed in all major search engines, this can be a great way to attract more visitors to your website.

Twitter.com is known as a micro-blogging website. A micro-blogging website is a website that lets you leave short posts, just a sentence or two, about what you are currently doing. You don’t even need to be next to a computer because you can post what you’re doing right from a cell phone.

With twitter you can set up a profile with you micro-blog and find other users to “follow”. Following a user lets you keep up to date with what they are doing at all times. Yes, that does sound a little scary, but users from all over the world have quickly embraced twitter even though it has only been online for a relatively short amount of time.

You can use twitter to quickly post what your company is currently doing. For example if you release a new product today or want to show off a new Website design. The trick to using twitter is to find users who have similar interests and start following their blog. As you build up the list of people who you follow and post interesting subjects, other users will begin to follow you as well.

You should also consider getting your existing website visitors following you on twitter by posting a link to your twitter account on your website.

Many services allow you to easily publish a quick summary of your latest blog posts to your twitter account. Other apps for iPhones or blackberrys let you easily “tweet” about what is currently happening with you.

While Facebook and MySpace provide a more general arena for social networking, more specific social networking websites are always being developed. Some can provide a lot of value towards your marketing efforts, others will provide you with a way to meet people with similar interests, while a large portion will only offer a short life span as they get caught up in the competitive online industry.

One of the largest social networking websites geared towards professionals is LinkedIn. Although LinkedIn will probably not provide a large amount of potential visitors, it provides an important opportunity to meet, network and build your reputation with like minded individuals all over the world. Building your network of professional colleagues can open new doors and reach the people who may be able to offer helpful advice and resources to starting and maintaining your online business.

LinkedIn is provided as more of an example of what you can do with social networking websites. There is ample opportunity to find networking websites related to your business and market. It is hugely beneficial to build a reputation with the key players in your industry and this is a great way to get your foot in the door.

LinkedIn can provide three key benefits for your website. The first by showing your public profile in Google search results when potential customers search for you or your product/service. If your website is new, leveraging the size and reputation of LinkedIn may be a quick way to start building recognition for yourself in search engines.

The second benefit allows you to answer questions using LinkedIn’s Answers section of their website. If you have experience with a certain subject, you can help others while providing additional information on your website or blog. If other people can view you as an expert in a certain subject matter, they may turn to your website or blog when they have similar questions in the future.

Lastly, like Facebook, you can create groups surrounding your product, service or website and get your visitors to join. If your website is geared to professionals of any sort, LinkedIn creates a great avenue for you to allow your visitors to connect with each other.

Both facebook.com and myspace.com are the two largest social networking websites in the world. A social networking website is a website that connects friends and family together using common interests groups. For years, myspace.com has been used my amateur and professional musicians, artists and movie stars to promote themselves and there work. Comedians such as Dane Cook have been rumored to owe their career to the popularity they received from utilizing myspace.com.

Both of these websites provide ample opportunities for promotion including posting your sample products, for example if you compose music, creating common interests groups, as well as cheap and targeted advertising. booksforschool.com, a Canadian based online textbook exchange service used facebook.com to advertise specifically to Canadian University students only. This lowered costs by only advertising to their target market and not paying to advertise to people who would never use the service such as students who have graduated years ago.

Facebook also lets you create company pages just like you can create a personal page for yourself. Your friends and customers can become fans of your company page and any updates you post to your wall will appear in their news feed.

You can use this feature to post about new products, special discount codes for your members only, or to simply engage with your customers on a more personal level.

When you create a company page, facebook lets you easily add a Facebook Connect widget to your website just like the one on the right and side of this blog. They provide all the code you need so you can easily advertise your company’s facebook page to your visitors and get them to join.

You can explorer the hundreds of facebooks apps you can add to your company page including automatic blog updates, twitter updates and even discussion boards.

Facebook and MySpace also provides an online market place and classifieds system which you can use to advertise your products for sale to thousands of online users.