By now you probably have heard of the new Facebook feature called Facebook Graph Search.
It’s still in beta (only Facebook users in the United States currently have access to it), but as the feature rolls out to more and more users, it is important to learn how it could affect your marketing strategy.
How is Facebook Graph Search different from the current Facebook search?
Using the current Facebook search box, searching will give you results of People, Places or Pages with your specific search term in their title. It also shows web results through Bing search engine. However, with Facebook Graph Search, results are personalized based on what you and your Friends/Fans have shared within Facebook.
Here is a video from CNET describing the type of searches that people can do in the new graph search tool.
Here are some simple changes you can make to your brand/business page to increase visibility in the new graph search tool:
Fill your About page with important information using your target keywords. Facebook pages are indexed by search engines, so putting appropriate keywords in key sections such as “Mission” and “Company Description” increase your chances of being found both within and outside of Facebook.
Claim your place. If you set-up your page as a Local Business, Facebook will often display your page when someone tries to check-in into your business. However, there are times that your page won’t show up, so people might end up creating a new place page of your business while checking in through their phone. If people checking in use a slightly different spelling of your business name, Facebook creates a new Place Page for it. In these cases, your page doesn’t get credits for these check-ins. To resolve this, make sure that you claim any Facebook Places that you believe to be yours or is referring to your business.
Encourage interaction from your audience through check-ins, liking photos and tagging. Right now, the graph search tool mainly focuses on people, places, photos and interest. Below are some sample searches from Facebook’s newsroom:
People: “friends who live in my city,” “people from my hometown who like hiking,” “friends of friends who have been to Yosemite National Park,” “software engineers who live in San Francisco and like skiing,” “people who like things I like,” “people who like tennis and live nearby”
Photos: “photos I like,” “photos of my family,” “photos of my friends before 1999,” “photos of my friends taken in New York,” “photos of the Eiffel Tower”
Places: “restaurants in San Francisco,” “cities visited by my family,” “Indian restaurants liked by my friends from India,” “tourist attractions in Italy visited by my friends,” “restaurants in New York liked by chefs,” “countries my friends have visited”
Interests: “music my friends like,” “movies liked by people who like movies I like,” “languages my friends speak,” “strategy games played by friends of my friends,” “movies liked by people who are film directors,” “books read by CEOs”
Encouraging your customers and friends to check-in when they are at your physical location helps increase the chances of your Page showing up when people filter by Friends. If you posts pictures of your events, encourage people in the photo to Like the photo and tag themselves. Graph Search makes it easy for people to browse pictures they’ve liked so this is a chance to make your Page pop up more often on people’s searches.
