With Twitter and Facebook taking on real-time search and rumors that Google will soon do the same, there will be an increasing need for companies to learn how to use search engine optimization (SEO) to attract people looking for up-to-the-minute results.

With this in mind, Mike Dobbs writing at Mashable says there are a number of tips people can use to make sure their Twitter – and potentially other real-time search engines – are working in their favor for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes.

Dobbs says one of the most important thing to remember is to make sure the username and account name reflect the brand a company or individual is looking to represent.

But when tweeting, Twitter users should also consider how search engine optimization (SEO) might factor into what they’re writing, especially in light of how Google presents the tweet in a results page.

"The ‘lead-in’ of each tweet appears to be important for SEO as it will determine what appears in the tweet’s title tag when it shows up as a search result on Google," writes Dobbs. "Approximately 42 characters are factored into each tweet’s title tag, including the account name, as well as the initial characters of each tweet."

To get into the real-time search world, Facebook recently announced it is testing an "up-to-the-minute" search function which will allow users to find results from friend’s profiles, fan pages and from users who have set their privacy settings to allow others to view content.