Online social networks are starting to play a major role in today’s marketing, especially for small businesses. These companies lack enough resources to launch and sustain a traditional mass-media marketing campaign. Since social networks are just groups of people connected around a common social object, i.e. reason to communicate, the main goal of a socially-aware business is to join or build a community related to the company’s products or services. Being able to authentically communicate with consumers and leads is a significant improvement to the mass pushing of advertising by traditional marketers. Social network marketing empowers companies to act as publishers of interesting or engaging content. In turn, this enables consumers and leads to only pull in information that they find personally or professionally interesting. Using this new form of marketing is already helping companies increase sales and awareness; some of which are mentioned in the results section. Social networks are playing a major role in today’s marketing and are restructuring companies around people. This was the defense for my bachelor degree thesis in 2011 but nearly all of the points are still valid. The actual thesis is available on request.