We wrote last year about Atlanta’s phenomenal growth in Facebook users, which moved the area up to second, only behind New York. Now Chicago is experiencing similar growth, closely behind L.A. at No. 3. Chicago’s Facebook users have almost doubled in five months.

iStrategyLabs has been tracking Facebook use since 2007, using data from Facebook’s social ads platform. The agency’s CEO, Peter Corbett, correctly points out that concerns over privacy have not had an impact upon Facebook’s growth, with the U.S. user base growing 21.8% between Jan. 4 and June 8.

Which age group had the highest growth rate? That would be those over 55.

A quick note about our webinar…

OK, I’m going to depart from normal practice here to plug an upcoming webinar in which I’ll be participating. I’m partnering with good friends Tim Morrison and Brownell Landrum on a series of classes devoted to helping writers perfect their craft, build websites for themselves and their books, and market themselves and their writing through social media. Tim is a writing coach and Brownell helps people set up websites using the power of the WordPress platform. And, naturally, I’m the social media coach.

We’re having a free, one-hour webinar next Tuesday, July 13, at 8 p.m Eastern. You can find out more about our classes — and us — at our website. And you can sign up here.

– Since we often hear from people questioning social media’s value, we should mention five “surprise success stories” using Facebook and Twitter for business detailed by Rick Burnes of HubSpot His list includes an equine dentist, a manufacturer of prefabricated steel buildings, makers of specialized paint and paper and an aircraft maintenance and support company. And there are plenty more to come.

– It’s now possible to “follow” companies on LinkedIn. This new feature, quietly introduced in late April, enables users to keep up with companies, whether one is looking for a job, looking for b-to-b-opportunities or just wanting to follow business developments. It’s a primitive, one-way system compared to Twitter and Facebook, in which you can interact directly with a company. Nor can companies offer timely status updates. However, you can see the status updates of key employees as well as promotions and other company news, assuming employees and the company are updating their accounts..While LinkedIn has a lot of work ahead to keep pace with the major social networks, this is still significant step in the right direction.

–Are you a job seeker? Since we regularly work with a local jobs networking group to assist the unemployed, we thought we’d share 13 “essential tips” for finding a job using LinkedIn from author and former pro athlete Lewis Howes. Howes offers solid advice, particularly for those who are new to the business networking site. One follow-up comment: If you add your blog or Twitter feed to your LinkedIn profile — as Howes correctly suggests you should do — make darn sure what you write on those places is professional. Otherwise, you’re asking for trouble.

– We know a lot of folks — of all ages— who don’t “get” Foursquare. Many of these same people also still remain openly skeptical of Twitter (We’re trying!) While the business potential of Foursquare has barely scratched the surface, consider this: Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley told Business Insider’s Henry Blodget last week that the service is adding 15,000 users a day. Not exactly Facebook numbers, but numbers that can’t be ignored.

Yes, the social-networking giant deservedly has taken its lumps recently, with disclosures of the dizzying changes it made in its privacy settings. Many critics were justified in questioning why these changes weren’t opt-in features, instead of forcing users to educate themselves and choose to opt out. Facebook has its work cut out as it tempers what Matthew Ingram of GigaOm calls the “snowball effect” of all the bad publicity.

However, several online items today point to just how silly things have become in the assault on Facebook. Just a few:

–The IT research firm Sophos found in a survey, being circulated widely, that 60 percent of Facebook users were mulling shutting down their accounts.

–Web entrepreneur Jason Calacanis was publicly announcing that he was shutting down his Facebook page, joining some other high-profile tech luminaries.

–The Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook had been sending data to advertisers that could be used to identify users and learn other personal details.

All this comes on the heels of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg coming under fire from disclosure of IMs from when he was a 19-year-old Harvard student. And reports about how the upcoming movie “The Social Network” depicts him as a “sex-crazed nerd.”

OK, let’s take a deep breath and take a closer look. First, IMs from a 19-year-old? Seriously? Even Tech Crunch’s Michael Arrington, who has raked Facebook over the coals on countless occasions, admitted this was going too far. And a 19-year-old as a “sex-crazed nerd”? Sound familiar? That description probably applies to 60 percent of male college students on this planet. (Disclosure: I’m sure I fell into that category, way back when.) Most of them grow up.

The survey? Sophos admits it was unscientific. How many times have you read surveys with people saying they’re thinking of doing something? How often are they overblown? A large number of people would truthfully say they’d like to quit their jobs. But are they going to do that? (Not in this economy)

With all respect to Mr. Calacanis, who I read often, I’m not sure his decision is going to sway too many outside the Web tech elite to close their accounts.

And Read Write Web’s Marshall Kirkpatrick — one of the Web’s best bloggers/reporters — quickly clarified WSJ’s report — the info being passed to advertisers was not all intentionally set up by Facebook; the way Web browsers are configured played a role in what URLs were passed to advertisers. And other sites face the same challenges in sharing data.

Yes, Facebook has a lot to answer for. Yes, they have made some big mistakes in trying to monetize its huge audience. They have infuriated me on many occasions. But let’s keep a healthy perspective and not fall to the overheated nature of the tech blogosphere.

And let’s get real. Facebook has more than 500 million users, does anyone honestly think 300 million of those users are about to leave?

iStrategyLabs, the digital marketing firm which has been tracking Facebook’s growth since October 2007, reported that the Atlanta area had a 267.6% increase between Jan. 4, 2009,  and last Monday. We blogged in July about Atlanta’s phenomenal growth, noting that the metro area had jumped to No. 2 in registered users behind only New York. However, Los Angeles, which experienced its own 240.6% growth, surged to No. 2 over the second half of the year.

Atlanta, as of Jan. 4, had 1,967,720 registered Facebook users, compared to New York’s 2,934,580 and L.A.’s 2,166,840. Atlanta slightly edged Chicago. (See full chart here.)

One can quibble about the value of numbers, especially if accounts are inactive, but if you own a business in metro Atlanta, one point should be clear: Your customers are on Facebook. And while the demographics aren’t broken down for Atlanta, growth is strongest nationally in the 25-34, 35-54 and, especially, 55-plus markets. Sounds like your customers, right?

Facebook provides a unique opportunity for Atlanta area businesses to connect with customers and potential new ones. Don’t know where to start? Don’t have time for Facebook? There are plenty of qualified consultants or marketing firms who can help.

Strike now while it’s hot.

Then came the punch line. The job was for two hours a day, $10-$12 an hour, depending on experience.

Evidently, this “cool” company doesn’t expect much ROI (Return on Investment) from social media.

A lot of business owners I’ve met in recent months are probably not that different than whoever runs this “cool” company. Small businesses and professionals are intrigued by social media, but a) don’t have the time to get involved or b) don’t see the ROI of hiring a professional to help.

So I’m going to give you not just one, but three simple examples of ROI in social media.

1. An Atlanta executive coach (Disclosure: a client who also happens to be my wife) who works with engineering firms was in a lull in signing new clients. However, the coach recognized that LinkedIn could help her open doors. She used the Advanced Search feature of LinkedIn to identify companies that were clearly doing well during the tough economy (e.g. hiring). Working through mutual connections on the business networking site, she was introduced to executives who then contracted to work with her.

2. Charles Nelson, president of Sprinkles Cupcakes, has a company that apparently makes great cupcakes. His cupcakes are so good that he has amassed 70,000 fans on a Facebook business page. The “Beverly Hills baker to the stars” announces a secret word each day, and the first 25 or 50 people to show up with that word at any of his five stores gets a free cupcake. The ROI: A booming business and highly effective word of mouth. Nelson has not spent a dime on any other advertising or marketing in five years.

OK, you say, that’s Atlanta and LA. Those are big, highly wired cities. Well, let’s turn to:

3. The New York Times In July featured mom-and-pop shops around the country making money through Twitter. Consider just one: Silver Barn Antiques in tiny Columbus, Texas. Even before launching a Web site, the owner was able to find both suppliers and customers nationwide. “Twitter has been a real valuable tool because it’s made us national instead of a little-bitty store in a little-bitty town,”  she told The Times.

So what is the value of social media to your business? Consider your goals. What is the value of a new customer or client? You know how many leads you generally need before you attract one customer. What is the value of generating a lead for your business?

My guess is it’s worth more than $20-$24 a day. Or even 25 cupcakes.

I try to show them that people of all ages are adopters of social media. Facebook alone has had dramatic growth this year at nearly all age levels, none more pronounced than women over 50.

Now there are new numbers available on social media users. The median age of a Facebook user has now risen to 33, seven years older than in May 2008. That’s not far behind LinkedIn, the business networking site whose 50 million-plus users have a median age of 39. The median age of a Twitter user has dropped to 31, which shows that Generation Y, which was not an early adopter, is now turning to the microblogging service. There had been numerous articles earlier in the year that Gen Y thought Twitter was pointless. Apparently, that’s changing.

Facebook getting older? Twitter getting younger? What does this mean? It means the old adage is no longer true that only the young are the early adopters of technology. And new social sites designed to attract the young away from Facebook and Twitter are reportedly not having an impact. The young are willing to use the same social media now used by their parents.

So much for age creating a digital divide in social media. (Yes, MySpace remains decidedly young — a median age of 26 — but its focus has shifted to mostly music and entertainment. And it’s certainly not the dominant influence it once was.)

While we’re debunking myths, let’s burst another bubble. Remember the study which found people were becoming more socially isolated because of technology, especially mobile phones and the Internet? Not so fast, according to a new study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Pew found that these technologies do not have a harmful social impact upon people.

In fact, Pew found social networking sites provide an outlet for “discussion networks that are more likely to contain people from different backgrounds.” In other words, people have digital contact with a more diverse group of people.

Boomer business owners, isn’t that one of your company goals? Don’t you want to expand your reach to new people, new contacts outside your regular sphere?

Can’t wait for the next business owner to bring up age, or dismiss the merits of social networking. I’ve got some new research to share.

First, let’s be clear. I wasn’t anywhere near Facebook HQ when they recently shared their six-month product roadmap. I’m depending on trusted, reliable social media strategists, such as Altimeter Group’s Jeremiah Owyang (formerly of Forrester Research), for details. Second, some of the major Facebook changes will really be more suited to bigger companies with large budgets for marketing and developers who can create customized apps for them.

So let’s get that news out of the way. Developers creating Facebook apps will be able to ask Facebook users for their email addresses. And so companies who create such apps will have a whole bunch of potential new data to work with. They’ll be able to socialize their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems with real contact information from social media and distinguish between existing customers and new prospects. So companies can further integrate their social media data into e-mail marketing.

But that’s the world of big-volume products and services. What do these changes mean for small businesses and professional service firms? And how should they be preparing for the changes?

As we wrote Wednesday, sites will be able to choose the types of Facebook functionality they want on their sites. For example, Facebook users can become “fans” of your Web site while visiting there. So that means their friends learn about your site from these new fans. A business can create a news stream visible on their site which would also appear on the Facebook pages of their fans — and also be visible to the fans’ friends.

If you have a small business that depends upon a Web site for business (and that’s a large percentage of them), you should:

• Be thinking about what Facebook features you’d like to have on your site.

• Be setting aside some money for your Webmaster to make sure you’re ready when it’s possible to integrate that functionality on your site

• Be thinking ahead on what types of creative ways you can interact with new users coming to your sites. Special deals? Coupons? What can you do to get users to come back to your site? And bring their friends with them?

• Be thinking about ways to harness the Facebook news stream. For example, if I want to promote this blog, I now use a Facebook page giving a short summary of what I’ve written and a link back to here. In 2010, I’ll be able to simply flag Facebook friends or site fans that my latest post is done. It’ll show up in their live feeds. Bloggers can expect increased comments because people are more likely to comment through Facebook functionality than traditional blog commenting. (I get far more comments about this blog through Facebook than I do here.)

So business sites with active updates and content will be in the best position to take advantage of the Facebook functionality. If you can share compelling content and helpful information with your site visitors, you can use the tools to drive more eyeballs and repeat visitors to your site.

Small businesses, this is a great opportunity. Facebook is bringing the social Web to you. Be prepared to take advantage of it.

The history of Facebook is filled with plenty of unpopular changes. Does anyone even remember the outcry on college campuses a few years ago when news feeds first began? The protests seem silly now in a social, hyper-connected, Twitter-fied world.

Facebook has amassed more than 300 million users, despite the occasional miscalculation, and is none the worse for wear. In fact, Facebook is making further changes, including one that especially will have a huge impact upon how businesses interact with consumers. And an early look at these changes finds that Facebook appears to have a solid grasp on a growth strategy.

(First, a quick note on a positive change coming for users: Developers soon won’t be able to use the Notification box to spam with solicitations to play games, download social apps, etc. Apps will move to the left sidebar, along with notifications from these apps. Apps-related messages will also appear in a channel inside the inbox. The idea is to make these messages less intrusive and to remove from news feeds and notifications. No more spam making me feel like a loser because I don’t care about Farmville.)

Now, the big change for business. Social media watchers everywhere are pondering the significance of Facebook’s Open Graph API, hinted at in a recent session at Facebook HQ. To vastly oversimplify, companies by early 2010 will be able to add the functionality of Facebook pages to their business sites, whether they have actual Fan pages or not.

Businesses will be able to update statuses or post content, with users leaving comments or liking items, etc., just as people do on Facebook. And that stream of activity also feeds back to Facebook where that activity reappears in the news stream of users.

Business gets a low-cost method to spur further interaction with users (and potential new customers) and increase time spent on their Web sites. Facebook gets a bonanza of data, expanded reach and new opportunities at growing revenue. Facebook also takes a giant step outside its closed garden and moves directly toward the center of the social Web. Much has been made of the war between Facebook and Google over who will control the social Web. Make no mistake: Facebook has fired a major shot.

There is another payoff for Facebook in these moves. With FB’s incredible past growth in the U.S., it’s obvious that at some point the company’s expansion domestically will flatten. What better way to expand reach, page views and length of visits on Facebook than to import your platform to other sites and still be able to monetize all that extra site activity generated.

I suspect that same thought was behind Facebook’s addition of the aforementioned Wall of Shame. The last thing Facebook wants is an inactive user. While I hate to see a user held up for unwanted attention, the move does make sense from a business standpoint. Inactive users are not good for the bottom line.

We’ve focused mostly on Facebook in this post. We’ll go deeper tomorrow on some of the potential changes for business and marketing over the next six months.

The first one is pretty darned obvious. According to Mashable, the Danish government’s tourism agency, VisitDenmark, produced a video hoax in which a woman claimed to be looking for a tourist who was the father of her child, conceived in a drunken one-night stand. Danish media learned the “mother” was actually an actress. The video, which reportedly had more than 800,000 page views on YouTube, has since been pulled. However, at this writing it can still be seen here.

Apparently, someone associated with VisitDenmark took rapper Kanye West’s approach to marketing, thinking bad publicity is better than no publicity at all. And, just as Kanye is taking some serious lumps for his outrageous behavior Sunday night at the MTV Video Music Awards, the Danish agency has stirred up a firestorm of outrage.

What were they thinking? We’ll leave Kanye to music fans. For VisitDenmark, a simple question: You’ve got a beautiful country. How does a stunt like this boost tourism?

Second, Honda is getting pounded on its Facebook page for the new Crosstour vehicle’s design. It was bad enough that users were critical. Then, a well-meaning Honda product planning manager took it upon himself to comment he liked the design and would buy the vehicle in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, he never said where he worked, according to Autoblog. Facebook users figured out where he worked, and carnage ensued. Honda, to its credit, let the barrage continue, but it reportedly deleted the employee’s comment, saying he did not speak for the company.

The lessons for Honda include: 1) Make sure your employees understand the company’s social media policies. 2) If it’s clear that you’ve got a PR problem on your hands, jump in early and engage with your critics and learn from them. Perhaps Fans of the Crosstour page have some valid ideas that Honda can use to make the next vehicle a better product.

If you’re a company using social media, set standards for your employees or marketing firm. And, for crying out loud, don’t let anyone misrepresent your company.

Thursday, we had all kinds of news about Facebook. It’s adding @mention functionality to Status Updates, meaning those updates can target a specific user by putting the @ in front of a user name. The update then willl appear on @thatname’s Wall.  And they officially rolled out Facebook Lite in the U.S.and India. In both cases, the blogosphere had a field day describing the moves as steps to become more Twitter-like. Barry Wise at Social Media Today likened Facebook’s moves to a “hostile takeover” of Twitter.

Today, Biz Stone, Twitter’s co-founder, e-mailed users about changes in the microblogging site’s Terms of Service. The Twitter blog reports, to no one’s surprise, that “we leave the door open for advertising. We’d like to keep our options open as we said before.”

So, Facebook wants to steal Twitter’s thunder. And Twitter wants to start making money, like Facebook is starting to do. So this means a Facebook-Twitter war, right? Wrong.

Facebook is adapting some of Twitter’s features, recognizing people want more real-time communication in social media. There are reports that Facebook will make hashtags possible, another Twitter feature, so that a post could be searchable. In other words, if a bunch of friends attended, say, a U2 concert, someone could search for all the comments with the hashtag #U2concert.

But, remember, the @mention and hashtag concepts were not created by Twitter. Both practices came from users trying to get the most out of a site with limited usability. Facebook simply recognized users like these practices and will adapt them. Twitter, in turn, will carefully try to make money without alienating users, following in the footsteps of … Facebook.

Facebook and Twitter are competitors, but only in the very narrowest of senses. They really are quite different. (Facebook friends who automate their tweets to Facebook, please note. Marketers who want to use Facebook for business, also please note.)

I’ll spare you all the differences today. Business Week offers this quick summary:

“Facebook is the private party. Twitter is the public square. This line has been drawn and there’s no reasonable change either site can make to step across it.”

Words to remember next time you’re reading dispatches from the social media industry battleground. I expect Facebook and Twitter both to flourish without stepping on each other’s toes.