The Facebook threat
Facebook has already been encroaching on others’ territory with its various products, including the upgraded Places platform. Graph Search extends that threat.
While Zuckerberg says Graph Search is not a web search tool, the fact users can search for places to visit could be a blow to Google’s own advertising platform. SEO agency Greenlight said in its analysis Facebook is clearly “giving Google a run for its money”.
Facebook pointed out many of the searches you can conduct involve interests, which the company has been gathering for years. Users can search for “movies my friends like”, which will show results based on the number of “likes” used within that person’s social network.
Another key, unexpected target is LinkedIn. Facebook search team member Tom Stocky said employers can search for potential employees by conducting a search for people who work at certain companies.
Besides the obvious shots at Google’s current search product, Stocky and Lars Rasmussen – two members of the Facebook search team – were previously very senior employees at Google. It’s clear Facebook wants to carve out a space of the search market for itself.
What businesses need to know
The most important change for businesses to understand is that Pages are now included in search results. That means not only will your company’s Page be included, but also Facebook Places accounts.
This comes just a month after Facebook said users could now place reviews of businesses on their Facebook Places pages. The new search product incorporates not only those reviews, but how many “likes” your business page has received, and also, how many times a particular person has logged in.
This means the more people are liking your page, leaving you positive reviews and checking in, the higher your business will appear in these search results.
As Jim Stewart says, this is why it’s critical for Australian businesses to get their business pages up to scratch – people are now actively looking for pages to click on.
“The businesses that show up most in these search results will be those that have content shared among friends, and activity happening all the time. That’s the only way you’re going to get seen,” he warns.
“You’ll also have the situation where businesses don’t have pages, but they’re being checked-in to and that means they’ll get higher results.”
Graph Search doesn’t require businesses to do anything new. Instead, SMEs should focus on what they should have been doing already – building quality, comprehensive pages on Facebook with useful content for users.
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
