If women are an important demographic for your business than it will be more important than ever in 2010 to create and maintain presences on blogs and social networking sites. The challenge of course, will not only to be discoverable in places where women search for information to support purchases, but to truly stand out.

In Helen Leggatt’s recent post, she wrote about the 2nd Annual Social Media Study from SheSpeaks which reports that women have truly embraced social networks.

Aliza Freud, Founder and CEO of SheSpeaks, states “…members were looking to social media to help them research, guide and facilitate every kind of transaction, from social exchanges to purchases.”

Over half (53%) of women say they have purchased a product because of a blog post and 43% as a result of information found via a social network. Both those figures are up from 27% last year.

The SheSpeaks study indicates that of those women who have a social networking profile, 95% have a profile on Facebook, up from 65% last year (a 46% increase.)

When we start talking about Facebook the question many people wonder about is the difference between Facebook groups and Facebook fan pages, and which ones are good for specific business purposes. Ann Smarty did a nice job laying out the differences in a post on the Search Engine Journal. As she concluded:

• Pages are generally better for a long-term relationships with your fans, readers or customers
• Groups are generally better for hosting a (quick) active discussion and attracting quick attention

Marketers just getting their toes wet with Facebook will benefit from taking a look at which companies are doing a good job creating interest, activity and buzz with their Facebook fan pages and Facebook groups.

What companies do you think are doing a good job with their Facebook pages and/or groups?

Illustration credit: Fabiofco Flickr