In my previous post, I asked a question “Should small businesses have a Facebook fan page?”. The answer to this question wouldn’t be more obvious (that it has to be a yes) when Facebook announced its new search function – Facebook Graph Search. It’s about time for Facebook to do something with the data they have collected from their more than one billion users. Facebook has been using this user data for business through their advertising program in the past few years. Now, they plan to leverage the usage of the same data for the users. If you are a small business owner, you might ask yourself – what does this function mean to my business?
As Kern Lewis commented in his post, if you plan to use Facebook as a key part of your communication channel, you have to invest the time to keep your fan page active with good information for your customers. You should keep this advice in mind at all time. I would also like to add that to have a successful Facebook fan page, you need to always do two things – build up your fan base and keep them engaged. The reason that engagement is important is that Facebook has a mechanism called Edgerank that monitors the level of engagement between your page and your fans. If some of your fans do not interact with your page for a while, it’s likely that they wouldn’t see your posts anymore. 
Now, let’s discuss about Facebook Search Graph. First of all, the word “graph” does not mean a diagram that exhibits a relationship between two or more factors that we all learned from schools. Rather, it is a social abbreviation for “demographics”. You may have heard the term “social graph” which carries the same meaning. To give a succinct definition, Facebook Graph Search basically is “Facebook Demographic Database Search”.
It is very clear that Facebook wants to tab into a search market that Google is a key player. What would make Graph Search different from Google Search then? The answer is in Mark Zuckerberg’s explanation “In general, Web search is designed to take any open-ended query and return to you links that may have answers to the question that you might be trying to ask. Now, Graph Search is very different. Graph Search is designed to take a precise query and return to you the answer, not links to other places where you might get the answer.” In other words, Facebook intends to give the exact answers to your questions, not just a list of links that “may” answer your questions. With Graph Search, you can ask questions like “where I can find a restaurant recommended by my friends”, Which accounting service my colleague’s friends use the most”, or “Which travel agent my friends use recently”.
Facebook Search Graph is currently in a beta test. It should be released to the users in the next few weeks or months. What do you have to do? Focus on my two factors above – building the fan base and keeping them engaged. As more and more people connect to your page, your chances of showing up in search results increases. From my experience, it requires great commitment but it’s doable.
Strategy to Success 