Everyone seems to be using Facebook to connect with old friends, but do you realize what this huge network could mean for your blog?

The state of Facebook is astonishing, and that’s a big deal for your blog. Facebook Page can be thought of in much the same way as normal profiles on the site – brand or celebrity Pages have the ability to have friends, they can add pictures, and they have walls that fans can post on. Pages communicate by “updates” which show on the update tab or a person’s wall if they’re a fan and have allowed the page to show updates. Pages can have applications as well. Here, for example, is the Real Posh Mom Page on Facebook: facebook.com/realposhmom

Here are crucial reasons your blog needs to be involved with Facebook:

1. 500 Million Global Users and Counting. Facebook announced recently that they had passed 500 million members, making Facebook the third-largest country in the world, if it was a country.

2. 150 Million U.S. Users. Facebook is strong around the world, but nearly 30% of all Facebook users are here in the U.S. Facebook has almost 150 million American members.

3. Users Spend Over 700 Billion Minutes Per Month. That’s a lot of Facebook time. How can your company grab a bit of consumer attention?

4. Average Facebook User Has 130 Friends. Will Facebook users continue to add more friends at a rapid pace? It depends upon how they view their Facebook connections. If Facebook continues to revolve around relationships that you actually possess in three dimensions—people you “actually” know—then the addition of bunches of new friends may slow considerably. But, if Facebook makes the leap to tie people together more casually (like Twitter), average friend counts could rise dramatically.

5. Only 4% of Pages Have 10,000 or More People Who Like Them. If your Facebook page is a not growing as fast as you’d expected, you’re not alone. A study by Sysomos shows only 4% of pages have 10,000 or more fans. That’s why it is so critical to focus your Facebook strategy on quality of material you give to people who “like” your page, not only on the quantity of those who “like” it. By the way, congrats to Cafe Brazil for making this milestone!

6. Wall Posts Don’t Mean Popularity. But, there is a strong correlation between amount of other content (notes, links, photos, videos) and number of people who “like” your page. Thus, if you want to grow your Facebook page, it is imperative that you move beyond simple wall posts and add photos, videos, links and other content.

7. The Power of Real-time Search. Facebook makes most content available publicly, unless you tell them not to via your privacy settings. Twitter opened their data stream to anyone. Google and Bing are incorporating this data into search results, in real-time. This has tremendous implications for search engine optimization.

Facebook may not be the ideal environment for every social media initiative, but its huge size forces you to at least consider participating—regardless of what type of blog you run. Everyone from the small business to the Fortune 500 corporation are placing bets on Facebook.

Is your blog taking advantage of Facebook? How important is it to your social media efforts?