Facebook Graph Search
Today, Facebook unveiled Facebook Graph Search, a new way to search through your Facebook connections and to help make them more useful (outside of just providing updates). What this means is that instead of searching through your Facebook news feed, you can use Facebook Graph Search to help you get more granular within your existing connections and make new connections in the process.
What is Facebook Graph Search?
When you say Facebook Graph Search, a lot of people immediately conjure up images of Google Search. Yes, Facebook Graph Search is a search engine, but it isn’t Google Search. For now, Facebook Graph Search will help you learn more about your current connections. For example, do you know which of your friends have traveled to London? How about which of your friends are a big fan of Microsoft Bing? With Facebook Graph Search, now you can find this out just by searching.
Examples of Facebook Graph Search Queries
Here are just a handful of Facebook Graph Search Queries that you can perform. As you can see, Facebook Graph Search should be extremely helpful with not only helping us stay connected with our friends and family, but Facebook Graph Search can also help us bridge connections with businesses, restaurants and even help us to expand out hobbies.
- Dentists my friends like
- Restaurants liked by graduates of Johnson & Wales University (a culinary school)
- Friends who live in Washington DC who liked the Washington Nationals
- Restaurants my friends have been to in London
- Friends who like to ski (great for planning an impromptu ski trip)
- Friends who live in San Francisco who like Imagine Dragons
Facebook Graph Search for Facebook Pages
One of the announcements that wasn’t made is how Facebook Graph Search results will affect Facebook Pages. Personally, I think Facebook Graph Search is going to make it even more important for businesses to be on Facebook and to have a complete, updated Facebook Page at all times.
In the past, it was extremely difficult to find anything on Facebook. At the same time, I can attest that I saw plenty of friends asking for recommendations for nail salons, dentists, restaurants in New York. Now, with Facebook Graph Search, people will instantly be able search for their friends who have a relationship with a specific business and then connect with that business. Overall, this should lead to an increase in the number of likes that a Facebook Page is getting too because of an improved Facebook Search. That’s why it’s important more than ever to not only have a presence on Facebook, but to keep it updated because of the billions of Facebook users who now might be visiting your Facebook Page.
How Facebook Graph Search Affects Other Social Networks
While Facebook Graph Search will help to improve the quality of your Facebook searches and increase the opportunity to get more likes (and potential customers) to your Facebook Page, I think we might see a shift from other social networks too. For example, now that I can search for people who work at a specific company (and actually find the results) on Facebook, this makes LinkedIn less of a necessary social network for job recruiting. The same holds true for sites like Yelp! and Angie’s List too.
If I want to find a restaurant, instead of using Yelp! to look through reviews from people I don’t know, I can now just go to Facebook and use Facebook Graph Search and type “Restaurants my friends have been to in London (or any location)” to learn more about their experiences at a particular restaurant and then use Facebook Poke to quickly ask them about foods they recommend there.
The same holds true for sites like Angie’s List. Why would someone pay to read reviews when they can now just go ask their friends.
Frequently Asked Questions About Facebook Graph Search
If you still have questions about Facebook Graph Search, here’s brief list from Facebook.
What is Graph Search?
Graph Search is a new way for you to find people, photos, places and interests that are most relevant to you on Facebook.
What is Graph Search useful for?
Graph Search will help you instantly find others, learn more about them and make connections, explore photos, quickly find places like local attractions and restaurants, and learn about common interests like music, movies, books and more. All results are unique based on the strength of relationships and connections.
What can I search for?
With Graph Search, you can search for people, photos, places and interests.
How do I search?
Type your search into the blue bar at the top of the page. As you start to type, suggestions appear in a drop down. You can refine your search using the tools on the right-hand side of the page.
Some example searches include:
· People who like tennis and live nearby
· Photos before 1990
· Photos of my friends in New York
· Sushi restaurants in Palo Alto my friends have liked
· Tourist attractions in Italy visited by my friends
How are you rolling this out?
Graph Search is in a limited preview, or beta. That means Graph Search will only be available to a very small number of people who use Facebook in US English.
How can I get Facebook Graph Search?
You can sign up for the waitlist at www.facebook.com/graphsearch
Does Graph Search change any of my current privacy settings?
No. Graph Search follows your current privacy settings. You can only search for content that has been shared with you.
How do I control what tags, locations and photos can show up about me?
To control tags, photos or posts with locations about you that appear in search, go to your Activity Log.
Read more about Facebook Graph Search
Video: Facebook Graph Search
If you’re still confused about Facebook Graph Search, here’s a video on how it works.
Closing Thoughts on Facebook Graph Search
If the pieces for Facebook Graph Search come together, I can see a really great solution that’s rooted in the connections we already have (which we’re biased towards anyway). Introduce an improved Facebook Mobile experience and Facebook just might have struck gold.
Overall, Facebook Graph Search is a pretty remarkable new feature and I’m really looking forward to it because it will help deepen current relationships and help us to forge new ones – with friends, restaurants, businesses and many more areas of our lives in the process.
What do you think about Facebook Graph Search? Are you excited about it? Leave a comment below with your feedback on Facebook Graph Search.