The newest social media developments are providing more opportunities for businesses to engage with their online audience.

Google has announced that public Facebook status updates have now been included in its real-time search results.

The addition will make Facebook a higher priority for businesses as it will position the social media giant at the top of the search results for the hottest queries, alongside the likes of Twitter and MySpace.

The Google indexing will only include updates from Facebook ‘pages’ instead of personal profiles. Links, status updates, photos and videos shared will be among the search results.

Another social media leader, Twitter, has also got good news for advertisers. The microblogging website is reported to be preparing to a launch of an ad model.

According to a report by The Wall Street Journal’s All Things Digital, the new way of advertising would not appear in users’ regular streams but would, instead, be tied to search results.

The ads are said to be copying the 140-character style of the service and will first come available via agencies. The future plans will see Twitter following Google’s and Facebook’s example of a self-service ad model.

Source: WebProNews, MarketingWeek