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It was recently announced that many popular search engines, including industry leader Google, are beginning to use content from social media in their search results.

The newest service to be added to organic results is Facebook. As of now only business accounts (or “Fan Pages”) are being indexed, not regular user pages. For now, that is.

Often times these real-time results are prominently featured on the first page of results. This has the potential to change web marketing strategy, as these accounts begin to compete with well established (and far more $ $ expensive) traditional websites.

Which brings me to an article I recently read, one that questioned the need to even have a website anymore. The author was being provocative; no one is advocating abandonment of your website in 2010. But just the fact that the topic came up is interesting.

The concept of a new business or brand operating w/o a standard home page at all – taking advantage of social media accounts and using other tactics like email marketing – is a completely new one.

By adding the content produced by these accounts to organic search results, the engines are taking this idea and moving it one step closer to reality. And making it all the more important that your organization get “on board” and create your own accounts, too.