What does Facebook's Graph Search mean for your business?

Issue 93: January 2013

Social media has emerged as a vital channel for the most powerful form of communication: word of mouth. But at the moment this is a largely passive experience for brands with only 16 per cent of people noticing content in their Facebook news feeds.

The rise of a new search concept could see social media communication become a whole lot more precise, proactive and powerful.

Released earlier this month, Facebook is calling its Graph Search a great leap forward; one it hopes will disrupt the dominance of Google for web searches, LinkedIn as a professional networking destination, and review sites for product and service ratings.

While ostensibly designed for users to find out more about their social network, Graph Search offers numerous opportunities for businesses as it will also deliver recommendations on everything from local trades people to global product releases.

The rise of social search

Facebook is going to great pains to differentiate its Graph Search from Google's current offering. And for good reason. Because answers are constrained by each user's social network Graph Search can answer specific, highly personalised queries.

Where Google is designed to take users to other websites, Graph Search delivers results within Facebook, such as "What restaurants in Sydney do my friends like?", "Which plumber in the western suburbs do my friends recommend?" or "What books are CEOs reading?"

These examples point to a key imperative for businesses of all sizes: the value of having a regularly updated Facebook presence that responds quickly to queries and concerns in order to keep the 'likes' flowing in.

Graph Search, which is currently in a restricted access beta mode, covers queries on four topics: people, places, photos and interests. This may sound limiting but with eight years of collected data Graph Search is destined to emerge as a rich source of reviews and recommendations.

Hitting the paid advertising bullseye

One of the big, albeit still unconfirmed, promises of Graph Search is the Holy Grail for marketers: truly microtargetted advertising.

AdWords, an existing form of microtaretting, has been incredibly lucrative for Google. Based on a user's search terms and to some degree a knowledge of previous search behaviours, the Google service has come to own the digital advertising space.

Yet as successful as it has been, Google's paid search results are far from precise. Now imagine if that service had access to considerably more data about its users' personal preferences. That's the promise of Graph Search should Facebook embrace an AdWords-like model.

Paying for attention in the Graph Search paradigm still faces few hurdles, including concerns about privacy. Although, according to Wired, this is something Facebook has already started to address by encouraging users to change their privacy settings if they want their 'likes' to remain be private.

The new Face of recruitment?

The field of recruitment is also within the sights of Graph Search. Facebook believes time-poor hiring managers will embrace social search as an efficient means of discovering job candidates amongst their friends or followers.

A possible future search may be "Mid level accountants who live in Brisbane". The fact that they're already following your site suggests people in this category are interested in the company or your sector. A good starting point.

But it doesn't stop there. Social searching for candidates could also include a personality or culture based analysis of people's likes and dislikes such as "Mid level accountants who exercise regularly and support charities".

The bottom line for social search

Given past concerns over the way personal information is used, success is not assured. But even if Graph Search is only embraced by a fraction of the world's 1 billion Facebook users there are plenty of reasons to ensure your Page is a 'likeable' destination.

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The Australian Institute of Management's Whitespace discusses emerging business trends, and represents a 'space to think of the future'. Register now to have this monthly feature emailed to you.