For the first time on a routine week, Facebook has outpaced Google to become the most visited site on the internet.

According to research from Hitwise, Google’s share is still growing, but at only a fraction of the pace of Facebook.

The market share of visits to Facebook.com increased 185% last week as compared to the same week in 2009, while visits to Google.com increased 9% during the same time frame.

Together Facebook.com and Google.com accounted for 14% of all US Internet visits last week.

So what does this mean for marketers? Well, it’s a slap across the face — any marketer that is advertising on Google should put their efforts into finding a good Facebook strategy stat.

[Via Hitwise]

When Foursquare first came out, it seemed like just another silly social app for iPhone geeks, but now that it has had some time to grow, it’s becoming a must have for just about any business.

Major players like Zagat have signed on and will be doing more than just providing badges (the way users boast to each other on Foursquare). The foodie staple will be interviewing the mayors (biggest visitors to a venue) of Zagat-rated restaurants and will also suggest local Zagat restaurants to users.

Foursquare has also penned deals with Bravo that correspond with network shows; with the new star vehicle “Valentine’s Day;” with HBO’s “How to Make it in America” — even Harvard University.

If you aren’t already on Foursquare, you should be. No matter what kind of company you have, the old adage of marketing is “meet your customers where they live.” And your customers are on Foursquare.

A lot of companies will get on Facebook and Twitter and say they have a diverse social media portfolio, but these secondary social sites are key to getting to as many people as possible. So instead of playing on Facebook for far too long and calling it work tomorrow, get on Foursquare, Mobile Spinach, Whrrl, Loopt, GraffitiGeo, Hotlist, Yelp, Qype, Brightkite, not to mention Google Maps.

EQUTE — Augmented reality is nothing new, it was featured prominently in James Cameron’s Terminator allowing Arnold Schwarzenegger to see a slew of information on a sort of heads up display.

Now you don’t have you don’t have to be a robot, or even a star to tap into this fascinating space.

Brightkite has implemented augmented reality ad campaigns into its location-based service — based on the sleek Layar browser.

Now, along with restaurants, parks, venues and other GPS points, users of Britekite will see exclusive ads and special augmented-reality-only offers. Best Buy has signed on through the rest of the year, and others will likely follow.

It’s an interesting development, but a basic one at the heart — reach your public where they live.

The only touchy subject is scaring your public from the places they live. If their augmented reality browser is suddenly full of ads, they may be turned off and find another browser or go back to their own reality altogether.

EQUTE — Twitter is getting even more business friendly with co-tweets.

This is a wonderful addition to any tweeting company, instead of having one master account and a dedicated “tweetologist” or passing around the Twitter login (unwise).

Now people can be invited to tweet under the company Twitter account along with a byline. The benefits are endless in news organizations, segmented companies, blogger networks where there are many people involved in content that don’t necessarily interact. By allowing them to tweet under the company account it gives the account more depth, and if someone on a newspaper’s politics beat is tweeting great stuff, they will get their own followers and fans.

This neat trick could also scale to huge companies or franchises, allowing project leads or franchise managers tweet their hot sellers, or interesting stories — giving transparency, internal communication and valuable, personal information to followers.

On a grassroots level, the trick could be used to run a neighborhood watch or even a apartment twitter party.

Anamitra, of Twitter, described the feature (currently in beta) in the Twitter blog

The feature we are beta testing is called ‘Contributors’ — it enables users to engage in more authentic conversations with businesses by allowing those organizations to manage multiple contributors to their account. The feature appends the contributor’s username to the tweet byline, making the business to consumer communication more personal; e.g. if @Twitter invites @Biz to tweet on its behalf, then a tweet from @Twitter would include @Biz in the byline so that users know more about the real people behind organizations.

It’s the next step beyond lists, giving tweeting organizations control of what their fans see beyond lists that still feature the ubiquitous “I like sandwiches and beer” comments.

One can only hope the feature is rolled out to the general public sooner than later.

Facebook and PayPal have teamed up, making it easier for confused parents trying to navigate social networks to send money to their kids.

It’s another interesting development on Facebook, and could open the door to more Facebook stores, micropayments etc.

Heinz Waelchli, director of product marketing, at PayPal explained it in a blog post.

Here’s how it works. Visit our send money application page and click on the “Get Started” button to install the application.

Next just fill in the fields in the form and click the “Continue to PayPal” button. You’ll be taken to the PayPal site to log-in (if you don’t already have an account, you can create a new account in minutes).

You’ll then choose your method of payment, if you use your PayPal balance or bank account to send money to friends and family within the U.S., it’s free.

You can enter a personal message to your recipient if you like. Finally, click on the “send” button and that’s it! Your recipient will be notified by email right away. The receiver can then log-in to PayPal to claim the money or quickly sign up for a new account.

Wonderful, now everyone can hit you up for money in person AND online.

EQUTE — With SES in Chicago in full swing, there are a lot of great SEO ideas floating around and coming out to the tip-hungry public. But it was a state of mind rather than a tip that was one of the most interesting things to come out of SES so far — how to look at social media.

WebProNews has a good write-up about small business social media use, but the thing that stuck out the most was what Jennifer Evans Laycock, Search Engine Guide’s editor-in-chief, said.

[Laycock] prefers to think of it as a dating experience - “social media dating for small business marketers,” if you will — and went on to explain why.

Laycock believes there are seven common rules. First, people must listen. They must learn to be romantic (using what already exists for their own benefit), and not expect sex on the first date (think patience and persistence). It’s also important to be yourself (look at how Blendtec embraced its identity), to make yourself available, to seek out the right match, and to value long-term relationships.

This is the heart of social media marketing — it’s not a sure way to conversions, but joining the conversation where your readers or buyers live is the first step to meeting them and their friends or followers.

It’s hard to track social media, it reaches people at their most comfortable, where they are intrinsically not seeking advertisements. So build trust, spring for a dinner and a movie — even a peck on the cheek (a retweet or unsolicited shout out) can mean a lot online.

EQUTE — Pizza Hut is making Twitter a full time job.

Pizza Hut has hired their ‘Twintern’ on to a full time position and asked fans what to call her.

“As Pizza Hut’s Twintern, I’ve been able to connect with so many interesting people who share an affinity for our pizza, pasta and wings,” Alexa said. “I’m excited that I’m now a member of the team and that I can continue to support the conversation around Pizza Hut®. I’m proud to be a part of such an important priority for the team at Pizza Hut’s offices.”

Alexa was offered the job back in October, but her naming contest lasted until the eve of December. Pizza hut followers eventually decided on Tweetologist.

I am happy to report that Alexa is no longer an intern with Pizza Hut, but has been offered a full-time job with the company. The marketing team at the company naturally took that as an opportunity for another promotion which allowed submissions for what would be Alexa’s new job title. After more than 200 submissions, the company is happy to report that Alexa Robinson is now Pizza Hut’s Tweetologist.

There were some other good names from pizza fans out there, including: “Sultan of Sauce,” “Twitteroni,” “Champion of Cheese,” “Tweetza Chef,” “Tweety Pie,” “C Tweet O,” “Personal Pan Tweetza,” and “Social Media Delivery Driver.”

EQUTE — Surprise! Coupons work for e-mail marketing.

OK, maybe it’s not a big surprise, but new research from Experian shows just how much better e-mails featuring a coupon work.

The research showed that e-mails with in-store and online coupons were opened by 25 percent and 24 percent of recipients. Non-coupon in-store and online e-mails comparatively came in at 17 percent and 18 percent, respectively.

The research also showed that:

“For marketers, the data behind our coupon study further validates how email coupons can and should be used to engage customers and drive traffic and sales to other channels,” said Matt Seeley, president of Experian Marketing Services’ Platforms division.

Marketers should try to focus on coupons, especially in this not-so-hot economy with the holiday shopping season upon us.

Tweaking those coupons is key too; 10 percent off is nice, but try leveraging poor performing goods with high selling products. Maybe buy one “New Moon” coffee mug and get a zebra coffee mug half off. These coupons could be a great way to clear out the extra junk in preparation for next year.

EQUTE — Twitter said it will soon offer big brands premium accounts that include enhanced features and analytics tools.

The announcement comes after many big brands jumped to be a part of Twitter analytics services and other news that Fortune 100 companies really didn’t use Twitter much.

A Weber Shandwick study shows that Fortune 100 companies are lagging far behind 15-year-old girls when it comes to Twitter.

The Weber Shandwick study showed that 73 percent of Fortune 100 companies registered a total of 540 Twitter accounts. However, about three-quarters (76 percent) of those accounts did not post tweets very often, and more than half (52 percent) were not actively engaged.(This was measured by engagement metrics such as numbers of links, hashtags, references and retweets.)

In addition, 50 percent of the Fortune 100 accounts had fewer than 500 followers, a small number in relation to the size and reach of a major corporation. Another 15 percent were inactive; of those, 11 percent were merely placeholder accounts — unused accounts to protect corporate names against so-called brand-jacking on Twitter — and 4 percent were abandoned after being used for a specific event.

In response, Biz Stone said that the site would charge for the new premium accounts.

“We want to present to [businesses] a layer of features to help make them better at Twitter, and share some of the analytics,” he said.

EQUTE — There are so, so many different software packages designed to help keep tabs of social media, and many are quite pricey.

Even if the general public could sign on, CoTweet runs $1,500 a month — just for Twitter — and other services charge monthly fees and huge start up fees just to sign on. So how can one keep tabs on their brand, their site, their product or their business leaders within the social media landscape?

Well one option is Yahoo!

Yahoo! you say?

Yes.

I had never personally used much before, but the Yahoo! Pipes are pretty interesting and are something I will surely use in the future. Just type in your business, brand, CEO etc and see what people are saying across all of social media. Since you can drop in several keywords and really get an eye on what people are saying. And instead of going to all the hundreds of sites and searching internally the “social media fire hose” checks them all and gives you a handy list and map.

Play around with it, there are scores of other interesting Yahoo! Pipes for just about anything.