Graph Search: How Facebook Revolutionized Digital Marketing Today

We were more than fascinated to find out about Facebook’s new, revolutionary feature called Graph Search this afternoon. In short, Facebook has begun to roll out access to a search engine that will employ an amazingly intelligent algorithm to present results to you based on friend’s experiences and interactions with those results, whether they’re photos, other people, pages or businesses of any type, and much more.

With this announcement, the ramifications for the social and greater digital marketing industries are naturally massive. Although Graph Search is being rolled out on a slow, highly controlled basis, we can expect the feature to completely redefine the way users find new goods and services online within the coming year as people will be the new recommenders as opposed to Google’s traditional archival results.

Take a look at this example search from the promotional page Facebook launched after the feature’s announcement today:

As this sneak peak demonstrates, the potential for businesses and brands with existing Facebook Pages to reach customers whose friends have already enjoyed their services is quite remarkable. 

As we’ve already mentioned, the trigger keywords and intelligence of the algorithms that guide these searches is expected to be quite advanced, although its unclear as of today how they will specifically function and output data. Regardless, here are a number of searches we are already certain will be commonplace once Facebook Graph Search is released on a more massive scale:

• Live music for my wedding in Scranton, PA
• Interior design blogs that my friends read
• Financial planners that are close to me
• Interesting blogs that my friends read
• Health food companies that my friends recommend
• Recipes my friends really like
• Non-fiction books that my friends have read
• Restaurants in New York City that my friends have been to

Users will rest assured that their privacy will remain completely intact, as Zuckerberg announced today that Graph Search will follow the exact rules that Facebook users currently set for each of their posts. This means Facebookers will only be sharing what they’ve  previously allowed to be seen by friends.

Naturally, optimization will be a major field in the manipulation of this new marketing tool, as is the case with all other search engines through the current practice of SEO. While the algorithm that controls search results pages for Facebook’s new Graph Search will be just as proprietary as Google’s, we expect the process to be much more fruitful and beneficial to users as the expected major guiding factor in reaching customers will be a well maintained social network of followers through Facebook pages. What acronym can we expect for optimization work in Facebook search results? FGSO? FSO? SSO? We’ll have to wait to find out!

Although a lot is decidedly unclear about this new feature, it’s certain that Facebook is now finally cashing in properly on its amazing amount of user data.

We believe that Graph Search is the final key in getting more customers connected with companies through “digital word of mouth marketing”–consistently the #1 factor that controls purchasing behavior. It’s a process thats been somewhat unsuccessfully implemented in the past through email or directing social posting, but thankfully not for long.

Here’s to more business for companies that our friends & family already love!