Over the years, we’ve become accustomed to visiting Facebook to catch up on the latest news from our vagabond friend traveling across Mongolia or checking the latest relationship status of our ex-partner. But did we ever imagine that social networking sites would become havens for peddling our wares?

With 600 million active users on Facebook (and growing), our online audience is waiting. No longer do we just ‘like’ a company, website or product. Social networking sites such as Facebook are finally beginning to offer e-commerce tools integrated into their platform to help market a company’s brand. Now you can catch up with your friends, order a pizza and buy flowers: all from the same site. With the rampant increase in smartphones, you can do it all from anywhere you have a few bars (bars on your phone, of course).

Businesses such as 1-800-Flowers have already jumped on board, utilizing Facebook’s e-commerce platform to allow users to buy flowers directly from their Facebook feed rather than having to log on to their actual website.

In a SmartBlog on Social Media post, the author interviews Jon Mandell, the general manager of Celebrations.com, who contributes to 1-800-Flowers’ social commerce strategy:

“So rather than redirect everyone back to 1-800-Flowers [the website], we’d rather just bring the product to wherever people are already hanging out online…we’re able to put a product for them to purchase right into the feed.”

In an article by Bloomberg Businessweek, Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg says the largest advertisers increased spending by nearly 20 times as they had in the previous year. A growing number of Fortune 500 companies are finding new ways to utilize Facebook marketing to improve their reach and increase revenue.

Spending online is predicted to rise from 14 percent of the market to 18 percent over the next three years, largely fueled by video and social media, according to ZenithOptimedia.

And, according to eMarketer, approximately 73 percent of companies used social media tools for marketing purposes in 2010; this number is estimated to reach 80 percent in 2011 and 88 percent in 2012.

And you can target your marketing efforts even more precisely by tying in your social media e-commerce site with geomarketing, also known as location-based advertising. With the growing trend in geomarketing, companies are beginning to see the benefits of hooking up with partners such as Foursquare, SCVNGR and Facebook Places to make the most of their advertising dollar.

In a recent MediaPost article, “All Interactive Youth Marketing Will Soon Be Location-Based,” CEO of social marketing agency Mr. Youth, Matt Britton, writes:

“With rampant smartphone adoption, a market dying to share its location with the world, and the overwhelming desire to 'hook up,' brands will be deluged with a real-time treasure trove of location information that will forever change the way we market.

What it comes down to is this: online purchasing, social media, smartphones and other similar mobile technologies are all predicted to keep on growing – and businesses will have to adapt. Now that you can utilize social media e-commerce tools to create an integrated social shopping experience, you can effectively take advantage of sites such as Facebook as a viable means to increase customer awareness and sales.

Start here with four tips on how to effectively use Facebook e-commerce to your advantage.