As Facebook filed for its initial public offer, it’s the perfect time to examine the website’s performance online and how its audience compares with that of other social networks.

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Media companies are seeing even more traffic coming to them from Facebook since the social network’s raft of changes began in September.

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No, Facebook didn’t create a search product to compete with Google, but a group of engineers from Facebook, as well as Twitter and Myspace, collaborated on a tool that they are calling Don’t Be Evil.

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Although looking up specific companies on social networks has been a common practice for years, many consumers have now discovered that they can use social networks to actually find a company that deals with the product or service they need.

Social media search is slowly evolving into a search service.

So how can your company get to the top of a social media search page? By using the right keywords.

Smart keywords choices and placement will give you a better chance of moving up on a social media search page. In this article, we are going to show you the  ways you can use keywords on your social media pages.

Find The Right Keywords

The keywords you decide to use will be different for different social media accounts. It is not a “one keyword fits all” operation. There are a few things you can do to find the right keywords for each of your social media profiles and pages:

• Lay Terms: Think about a common word that someone would use to describe your company. If someone couldn’t think of your company name, what would they type in the search bar of a social media site? To-do list software? Picture app?
• Desired Association: You may want to consider choosing a keyword that you want to be associated with. If you want to show up when the words “daily deal app” are typed into the search bar, make that one of your keywords.
• Competition Check: Competition isn’t a big issue when it comes to nabbing the number one spot of a social media search query, but it’s still something to consider. Once you think you have a good keyword, type it into the search bar and see what comes up. If there are a lot of very relevant companies, you may want to try a more specific keyword.
• Search Engine Optimization Keyword Research: If you have already performed SEO keyword research, it would be wise to revisit your findings and use some of those same keywords.
• Prepare for Different Social Media Sites: For example, if you’re an electronics company, think of keywords related to popular product models that will be useful on your Facebook page.

Once you have found a keyword that’s right for you, it’s time to actually start optimizing.

Photo Captions

The goal is to use keywords on your social media site whenever possible. One of the first things you can do is use these keywords to describe your company’s photos.

Most companies generally have several photos on their social accounts, but few actually put thought into the captions. It may take some creativity, but the more you can incorporate your keywords the better.

Links And Tags

If you are ever going to update a status on your account, try and use your keywords as much as possible. Although this may be difficult when linking back to another webpage, it’s entirely possible to add it into a status description or use as a hash tag.

All of the major social networks have a place for a small blurb about the person or company. For example, the company Higher Visibility may want people to find their company when they type the word “internet marketing agency” into the search box. By placing it in the headline, they’re optimizing their page for that keyword.

Headlines

Headlines are on-page drivers for search engine optimization, so you can bet that search engines will be indexing important headline content often. In addition, Facebook is a trusted domain, so it tends to rank higher in search engine results than the company website sometimes.

This is almost always true when it comes to an individual, but it’s something for companies to also consider. Ranking on major search engines like Google is important, so it’s always a good idea to give your social media accounts the extra push by using your target keywords.

About Section

Use your keyword in the about section on your Facebook page. Really lay on the keyword usage thick. You don’t want your summary sections to sound strange or unnatural, but if you have an opportunity to use your keyword, go for it.

What This Means for Your Business

Getting to the top of a search page on a social network is considerably easier than trying to get to the top of Google search results . People search for things on social networks all the time, but the idea of optimizing an account to reach the top of the search results is relatively new. There isn’t a lot of competition, but there can be a lot of gain for companies using social media keywords. In other words:

• Transfer your search engine optimization skills into social media search boxes;
• Get ahead of the curve before your competition; and
• Watch your fans and friends increase.

One Final Note

As the social graph continues to opens up over time, the general consensus is that search engines will be using this social data to improve their search results. Optimizing your social media accounts now is a great way to keep ahead of the competition.

Guest writer Amanda DiSilvestro blogs for KissMetrics. First and last images courtesy of Shutterstock.

Facebook is adding lots of new friends in Washington, D.C., if the company’s fourth quarter lobbying report is any indication.

Marking a Facebook first, the company’s lobbying budget broke through the million dollar ceiling last year based on the fourth quarter reports filed recently.

While the final 2011 lobbying figures will be reported later this month, estimates put the last year’s lobbying budget at $1.35 million.

Papers filed with the U.S. government Friday reveal that Facebook spent $440,000 on lobbying in the last quarter of 2011, up 30 percent from the same period a year ago and a whopping 85 percent increase over the $38,117 spent in 2009.

Facebook’s fourth-quarter lobbying budget was the most the company spent in any reporting period last year.

However, Facebook’s lobbying budget is still dwarfed by the amount spent by other major Internet and technology companies.

In comparison, Google spent $3.76 million in the last quarter of 2011.

The increased outreach to policymakers appears to be an industry trend.

Most tech companies — actually most companies and industry trade associations — saw a marked increase in their lobbying budgets in the fourth quarter of 2011 over the same period last year.

One reason could be the business community’s increased confidence in the economy.

Employment figures have been slowly ticking upward. And Congress is generally more active in the year before a presidential election.

It will be interesting to see if Facebook’s federal lobbying budget holds steady or grows in 2012. While the federal government — Congress, the White House and various agencies — will continue to work on issues like privacy, the real action this year will be in the presidential and congressional races, as well as local and state races.

So, how did Facebook spend a cool million in the nation’s capital?

Facebook may have laid the groundwork in 2011 for their recent victory against the Stop Online Piracy Act.

And the social network recently reached a much publicized deal with the Federal Trade Commission over the privacy of consumer data.

The social network also expanded its Washington D.C. office last year, adding top political talent. Additional staff generally portends more activity, and Facebook has been active on several fronts in 2011. The company participated in the recent Hackathon on Capitol Hill and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg met with lawmakers to discuss small business issues.

Facebook’s filing states that its representatives met with members of Congress as well as federal agencies, including the U.S. Trade Representative’s office, the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. Department of State, to name a few.

Topping the list of issues Facebook lobbied on were privacy, online security and safety. Specifically, the company names the Child Online Protection Act, mobile Internet access issues, the Commercial Privacy Bill of Rights and the Do-Not-Track Online Act, as well as the Irish Data Protection Act.

Members of Congress are using Facebook in different ways –from buying ads to conducting town halls – -as a vehicle to boost engagement with constituents and expand their support online.  Facebook is still a relatively new platform on Capitol Hill, and the social network plans to educate lawmakers about how best to use the technology.

Update: A Facebook spokesman shared this statement with us via email:

Do you think Facebook should be spending increased amounts of money on federal lobbying?

Music video site Vevo has one year left on its agreement with YouTube, but that reportedly hasn’t stopped Facebook from sniffing around.

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Facebook will most likely never develop a search engine of its own to compete with Google, but that doesn’t mean the social network can’t carve out its niche in the search sector.

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Continuing to demand the technically impossible, a court in India issued another threat against Facebook, threatening to block the social network and other websites, including Google, if “offensive and objectionable” content is not removed.

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Amid all of the speculation on the effects of adding content from Google Plus and Picasa to Google’s search results, another back story is beginning to emerge: Why have Google and Facebook never reached a search agreement?

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Google fired what was initially seen as a powerful shot earlier this week in its ongoing rivalry with Facebook by adding content from the Google Plus social network and Picasa photo-sharing service to its search-engine results, but could that shot have backfired?

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