• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, June 12, 2009

Julie Supan, who helped make YouTube a household name as its senior director of marketing, has left the Web video hub to become vice president of marketing at social network platform Ning.

Supan, who BrandWeek named among its Marketers of the Year in 2006, joined YouTube in the same year and served as the company's chief spokesperson. Supan oversaw grassroots marketing and public relations activities for YouTube and created its Underground music promotion, according to her LinkedIn bio.

Before being hired at YouTube, she had consulted for company founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen in 2005. "At a time when YouTube was all that people were talking about, she was at center of that communications plan," said Ian Schaefer, CEO of interactive agency Deep Focus.

Ning, co-founded in 2004 by Marc Andreessen and CEO Gina Bianchini, allows users to create their own online social networks, has raised $104 million to date including a $60 million round last year led by Allen & Company. The company, which recently surpassed 1 million social networks, derives revenue from targeted advertising (via Google AdSense) as well as subscription-based services.

Ning.com had monthly U.S. traffic of 7.5 million at the end of May, according to Web measurement service Quantcast.