Skype 5.0 includes a Facebook tab, which displays the Facebook news feed. You can post status updates, comments, hit the like button, and, via Skype, you can call a friend. For entrepreneurs, the ability to call or text Facebook connections will allow for a more personal and dynamic interaction with potential clients. Now that Skype is synced up to social media, it can be used as an effective marketing tool.

Think about it: if you are connected on Facebook, you can video chat with a potential client, face-to-face. It’s almost like old-fashioned socializing (except, well, it’s not). You can even have a 10-way group video call, if you’re hoping to inspire a crowd.

Skype and Facebook both boast over 500 million registered users, so this partnership is pretty big news for the online world. It’s also big news for entrepreneurs who want to take advantage of social media to reach potential clients and customers.

With the new service, you can get alerts on your phone when new users join or leave, when a theme changes, or when privacy settings are updated. These services are free. However, the upgrade, which allows you to receive and respond to comments, costs $20 a year.

Of course, if you have a smartphone, you probably don’t need to pay the additional money to manage your comments. Many mobile apps allow you to access and edit your blog online. Also, you can use a free service (such as Ping.fm) if you’re not worried about security, and use SMS to post comments on your blog. Still, if you don’t have an iPhone, Blackberry or Android phone, it may be well worth it for you to go ahead and buy the upgraded feature. Social media is now a mobile phenomenon.

Social media makes it easier than ever for you to find people who find the same interest, share ideas and connect online, and eventually make commitments to attend offline support groups, events or conferences. One such website is http://www.meetup.com. Many social media leaders and entrepreneurs post free events on meetup.com, covering many major locations throughout the country. There are 179,000 meetups in over 11,507 cities throughout the US.

Straight from the site, this is what meetup is all about:

Meetup is the world’s largest network of local groups. Meetup makes it easy for anyone to organize a local group or find one of the thousands already meeting up face-to-face. More than 2,000 groups get together in local communities each day, each one with the goal of improving themselves or their communities.

Meetup’s mission is to revitalize local community and help people around the world self-organize. Meetup believes that people can change their personal world, or the whole world, by organizing themselves into groups that are powerful enough to make a difference.

Signing up for a meetup.com membership is free, fast and easy, all you need is an email address. After signing up, you can then start looking for groups that meet within your area that would be help you as your grow your knowledge. Just click on the button that says “Find a meetup group” on the upper left corner to get started. Here are some examples of meetups that might be helpful to you. Check out this link and start browsing through the many social media marketing meetups in the country.

Practical Social Media is dedicated to the success of your social media marketing for your small business. Please continue to check out the Practical Social Media blog. We will continue to publish and share social media marketing tips, updates, news and information that helps you out in your social media strategy and implementation.