Back on July 2, 2007, Lisa Braziel and I launched our blog for Ignite Social Media and set out to figure out what a social media agency was, what it did and who it was going to do it for. We realized quickly that neither of us could program, as we kept repeatedly breaking the blog, leaving us to call on friends to bail us out. That's why we didn't look for or accept clients until October of that year, after we had Gene Smith on board. Finally, a guy who could make a web page do just about anything.

Now, three years later, it's a bit remarkable the changes. We've got 32 employees, including highly technical SEO experts, amazing designers, gifted copywriters, a brilliant development team, slightly crazy number crunching analytics types, a deeply immersed engagement team and wickedly organized account managers. We've got an office with 7 people in Detroit. Our Seattle office opens on Monday.

At the end of 2009, we ranked the Top 50 Branded Facebook Pages for the first time, ignoring all the music and celebrity pages and ranking the largest brand-run Facebook pages. Today, exactly 6 months later, we rank them again. This time, we're able to see who is growing, who is slipping, and just how fast you have to keep moving to make this list.

Just as we did last year, there's a clear methodology, explained at the end as to which types of pages made the list and which type did not. But let's get right to the findings, and then share the entire list.

Top Five Are Unchanged

• The Top 5 from December 2009 (Facebook, Starbucks, Coca Cola, YouTube and Skittles) remain in the top 5, all in the same order.
• It was no easy task to stay in the Top 5, as they grew, on average, 65.05% over the last 6 months to defend their positions. The list overall grew at an average rate of 47.81%.
• Each of the Top 5 grew by at least 100,000 fans this past weekend alone.
• Newcomers to the top ten include Red Bull, Windows Live Messenger and Victoria's Secret. They replace Disney, Pringles and Big Prize Giveways, which fell to 11th, 13th and 18th respectively.

Digg.com is so 2008.

Also, here's a picture of two kittens. Stay tuned for another.

This post was originally going to be about why our favorite (or maybe not-so-favorite) social bookmarking sites seem to be falling to Facebook and Twitter shares, but when I did my research, I found something interesting. While Reddit remains not-so-well-read and Digg declines, visits to StumbleUpon are shooting through the roof.

Since we opened in July 2007, we've grown very quickly; roughly 100% per year on average. And we get to work on fun stuff with a wonderful group of clients.

In order to keep them happy, and keep our capacity at the level it needs to be as we grow, we're announcing some significant moves today.

We took a hard look at our organizational structure, what we were asking people to do, and how we were set up for continued growth. In most cases, we were thrilled with what we saw. But in some cases, we were asking people to do more than any one person could do well. They were getting it done now (and I thank them for it), but it wasn't going to be sustainable as our client roster grows. So with our new structure and new teams, people are set up to focus on what they do best, and to make sure our clients stay where they've always been--solidly out in front.

Two New Offices

First, we're opening two new offices--one in Detroit and one in Seattle--staffed by a team of 7 in a variety of disciplines. In addition to quicker access to our clients around the country, both Detroit and Seattle have a depth of marketing and technology talent that will enable us to continue to attract the very best people.

Nothing we say online is private. If you post something to your Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr or Flickr page, the world can know about it. When you communicate via a social media portal, it is the equivalent of being at a crowded party with a megaphone. Everyone has a megaphone at this party, but not everyone is using theirs. So when someone approaches you at this party and whispers in your ear that you've done something to offend them, try not to call them the "C word" by shouting through your megaphone. You see, the record will scratch and the party will come to a halt. People don't like to be offended, and when you offend one person online, you offend A LOT of people online. Here's what happened on Tuesday with a little Raleigh, NC bakery that has been a shining example of how a small business should NOT do social media.

Its that time of the year again and I thought our readers would be curious how the different social networks have progressed over the last 2 years since we started analyzing the various social networks from around the world. It is interesting to note that the domain type in traffic has fallen for almost all of the social networks we analyzed. We are not sure if this is an anomaly with the Google Insights for search tool, or if users are realizing you dont need to Google domain.com, you simply need to use the browser for what it was intended for. In any case, I have highlighted some of the changes below. Remember all insight is gathered from Google Ad planner and Google Insights for search.

The inspiration for this post began way back in November, when I spied a tweet lamenting the fact that blogger "Best Of..." lists heavily favor male bloggers. In this mindset, I quickly dashed off a post called "5 Female Bloggers Who Will Get You Thinking," which received such a wonderful response that I decided to expound upon it.

For this post of 50 women bloggers, I pulled from my own feed reader and used suggestions from my esteemed colleagues. This list, however, is by no means comprehensive. I figured that women bloggers weren't being mentioned because 1) people just don't know which bloggers to read or 2) people don't think female bloggers write relevant content, especially as related to tech and social media. This list is to help remedy both situations.

Help add to this list by leaving your favorites in the comments. In a couple of months, hopefully I can turn this into a list of 100! 

While brainstorming for this blog post, I kept flashing back to a scene in Dirty Dancing in which Neil (that rich guy) brags to Baby about his ways with women.

Sometimes it's easy to feel like the "Jamie-the-lifeguard" of branded Facebook pages. Even when you follow a great strategy, it may occur that the fans and/or engagement don't immediately come pouring in.  Hey, we have deals and discounts! We engage! What does the Starbucks Fan page have the we don't? (Well apparently you can now customize your Frappuccino...)

In all seriousness, though, the mark of a successful page is not one that scrounges up as many fans as it can grab, but one whose engagement style fits the type of fan it's looking for. We'll call these types of pages the "Johnny Castle's" in the realm of Facebook fan pages. They dance, they sing! They have cool friends and popularity that has been earned on the dance floor...er, Facebook. And they get the girl.

But not all "Johnny Castle" pages are cut from the same cloth. Some pages pull in "likes" because they make fans feel like each and every one of them is making a difference. Others promise excitement and fun. But whatever the tactic, these pages have found ways to attract their ideal fan.

As most of us are probably aware, Facebook, along with a myriad of other changes, took away the “Become A Fan” functionality and renamed it “Like.” Of course, “Like” existed before, but it was something you could do in response to an action. Now, rather than becoming a fan of some business or person, you simply “Like” them.

This is the final step in the series 5 Steps to Developing a Sound Facebook Fan Page Strategy.  This is finally where the rubber meets the road, and we begin implementing on a Facebook fan page.  However, even though this is the last in the series, it shouldn't be considered the final step.  In many ways it's just the beginning.

Let's get started.