Today, Facebook unveiled a new search tool that will enable users to sift through business pages, places, people and photos. Mark Zuckerberg called it “graph search,” and it is a tool that will help Facebook’s one billion users search through various items for people, things, places and photos that are of interest to them. It is a search that is limited to Facebook’s platform, so it will not be a direct competitor with other engines like Google.
As an example, Zuckerberg explained a situation where he and his wife Priscilla were looking for a Mexican restauarant in Palo Alto that his friends liked on Facebook or checked into (this will not yet include status updates). Simply stated, it is “a completely new way to get information on Facebook,” stated Zuckerberg.
From a privacy standpoint, you don’t have to be concerned. Your Facebook content will only be found if you want it to be found. You will likely get a notification on Facebook advising you to review your privacy settings, so you will want to review those settings in advance before this new search tool is fully released on the social media platform.
Due to the sheer amount of information and data that Facebook has accumulated over the years, users may become increasingly less interested in using traditional search engines in order to get certain types of information if they can sit on Facebook and access that data. Let’s use Zuckerberg’s restaurant example. If I want to search for a local Mexican restaurant, wouldn’t I be more inclined to stay on Facebook and search for a nearby Mexican restaurant that my friends liked versus visiting a search engine and taking a chance based on reviews on Yelp, search engine rankings or advertisements? In essence, I want an informed opinion that I trust, and I am more likely to trust my friends’ endorsement of that restaurant versus a random opinion or advertisement elsewhere. (Do I think this new Facebook tool will make that big of an impact on Google? The jury is out on that - for now. The biggest impact at the moment is Yelp's stock, which dipped by 8% when Facebook made its statement today).
From a business marketing standpoint, you want to pay close attention to what this development means for you and your business. In my opinion, this “new Facebook search tool” has inserted a slight game changer in the world of social media marketing and search engine optimization, the details and impact of which will not be known until the search tool is fully released and available to users. I am intrigued by what this tool means for businesses that want to strategically leverage their marketing efforts and increase their visibility to Facebook’s audience. According to Brian Blau, an analyst with Gartner, Facebook’s search tool will “lend itself to advertising or other revenue-generating products that better matches what people are looking for.” In addition, “advertisers are going to be able to better target what you’re interested in. It’s a much more meaningful search than keyword search.”
Due to the game changing nature of this development, we’re going to continue to cover this search tool on the Stafford Business Group blog and what it potentially means for your business marketing and visibility in the online space.
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