It is the social media debate circling the blogosphere. Is it ethical to buy Facebook fans for your business? We already know businesses are buying fans with Facebook ads, but some are taking it a step further, allowing companies to buy thousands of fans outright.

Facebook is –without question- the most powerful form of direct marketing on the web.

Do you want to find females, living in London, ages 22 to 23, under the Scorpio sign who read The Sun and like Yoga? You can find them on Facebook and communicate directly to them if they LIKE your Facebook page. Are you looking for wine lovers, living in New York City, who are single and love to eat out? Facebook can introduce you to them.

Privacy advocates have criticized Facebook from day one for learning too much about us. The voluminous information that Facebook collects may be bad for privacy junkies, but for marketers, businesses and entrepreneurs, it’s a treasure trove of data that can help you grow your business and market directly to new customers.

But it comes with some controversy. Several companies, including BigBirdFans.com, can help businesses find targeted fans at an accelerated rate for a price. No need to take months to build up your fan base for your restaurant. Now, you can open on day one with targeted fans from your community.

But which is more cost-effective? Is it better to grow your fan base organically over time or with a one-time purchase? First off, no matter which route you take, it will cost you. Unless you’re David Beckham, most people won’t hit LIKE to your business unless they are getting something in return.

I’ve worked on campaigns to grow the Facebook fan base for clients organically as well as with the help of technology. When we helped reality TV personalities, restaurants, nightclubs and lounges grow their fan base organically, clients had to pay for incentives, like free drink specials, coupons, appetizers, publicists or original programming.

Now, consider the alternative – buying targeted Facebook fans outright for your business. It’s a trade-off. Would you rather get targeted fans overnight or take your time building your fan base via your own incentives over time.

For the critics who question the ethics of buying Facebook fans, every business pays for fans in some way or another. But if you dollar-cost-average the organic way of acquiring fans versus buying fans outright, you just might discover that the use of technology trumps the old fashioned way of growing your Facebook fan base.

You use technology to promote your business, so why not leverage it to grow your Facebook page.

So what do you think, are you convinced that there is some value in acquiring the right fans in the right way?

Mark Macias is the Managing Partner of 3MMediaGroup.com. His company also runs the social media component- BigBirdFans.com, which helps businesses acquire fans in the social media world.