2010 seemed to be the year of social media – we were introduced to new platforms like Quora, met the “new” designs of twitter and Facebook, and we even recently saw New Jersey mayor Cory Booker leverage twitter during an east coast snow storm (if that isn’t a great example of using social media for crisis communications, I don’t know what is). As all of the year-end reports are coming in, it’s increasingly apparent that we just scratched the surface this past year, and we need to be even more mindful of social media in 2011.

According to a report from comScore, U.S. Facebook usage increased 55% in 2010, and is not likely to slow down. I’m not surprised by this growth, nor do I think anyone is, it has been rapidly accruing users since 2004. I think the biggest indication of the power – and sign that it’s not a fad—of social networks is that Facebook has now replaced Google as “King of the Web." Facebook accounted for nearly 9% of all U.S. website visits, while the Google search engine only registered about 7%. The fact Facebook is the most visited website, coupled with its two-year reign as the top U.S. search term, means that we should be watching for even more from Facebook 2011—especially as many have included social integration in 2011 marketing predictions. We all know that social networks are popular, but we are now starting to see that their power, reach and marketing opportunities (especially for the B2B world), are undeniable.

Facebook is not the only social network that had a good year, either. YouTube surpassed Yahoo to become the second largest search engine in 2010, helping to prove that the necessity for a social marketing strategy is just as important as an SEO strategy. Reports from Google and Bing this year explained which social metrics actually matter in organic search, and need to be applied when appropriate in your 2011 social marketing strategy.

Given the recent shuffling of the most-visited sites in the U.S., I think it’s important to be even more concerned with your social media presence this year. As users transition to frequenting social networks more than traditional search engines, it’s necessary to make sure your social media presence still portrays the right image and that it provides benefit to your end-users. 2010 was about the growth and expansion of social media marketing, but I think that 2011 will be the year we start to glean value from our social marketing strategies.