Facebook has, as you know, side swiped MySpace from the top of the social networking tree. I for one prefer Facebook and with the addition of Facebook pages for businesses, it’s scope became huge.

As a search marketer and general digi marketing geek I’ve often wondered the best way to use Facebook for my clients. Of course we know about the “Pay Per Click” style advertising Facebook allows but what about those people who can’t afford that; the people who want a more cost effective Facebook advertising solution?

Well, whilst it’s not a golden egg, the recent announcement by Google that Facebook Pages are now included in real time search results is very welcome.

Google currently is seemingly only showing status updates regarding trending or news related items (it is real time search after all), but the potential here is big: you’re a switched on company and you’re on top of what’s happening in your industry. Given the magnitude of any particular even in your sector, you could find your Facebook page displaying in Google’s top ten for a search term you considered a throw away comment on your social network.

Of course, some creative thinking would need employing to sell this as a service to clients; you have to, after all, make sure that anything like this draws quality and relevant traffic.

It’s a big enough development in online marketing to warrant heated debate amongst search marketers, I’m sure – whilst I’m not sure that we can use this as a service alone I do believe that it has some weight if considered as part of an overall digital strategy; after all, Google is all about providing quality and relevant content to searchers and as real time search grows over the year(s?), having your finger on your clients industry pulse will become more and more important.

How have you employed Facebook Pages in your online marketing strategy?

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