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A new Facebook feature reported yesterday is “People Search” with public profiles. Given a short time, this will make us all much more ‘findable’ in search engines. Indeed, Facebook could essentially become a “people search engine”.

Great for finding people, but it does pose a problem with exposure - do we really want that much? As much as Facebook is a choice for us to use as individuals, do we want to start chipping away at our personal privacy and are most people in control of what they say and what people see with regards to the possible implications?

Employers are also cracking down on employees using Facebook and what they say online that could harm their brand.

The flip side being that as a user of Facebook, what you say, how you say it and who you connect with, could influence other peoples opinions about you personally.

We had success this week implementing a Facebook Group and engaging a customer base for a retail outlet. But, already, comments are being made on the open forum, which may be funny to one person, but could offend another.

Allowing people to have control over aspects of your branded communications brings its own problems but I guess people are already using Blogs to do the same thing already. But using this kind of media, they are connected together by you.

That said, it’s a great way to turn the tables and re-emphasise your brand values in front of everyone and you do still have control over what gets shown. But, just like forums, there’s always one that spoils it.

Facebook offers a real opportunity for organic social networking, above and beyond equivalents like MySpace, but careful strategic management of how you do that is essential for your business, and for “brand you”.