Stalker, maybe?: Using Facebook’s Graph Search to Zero in on Your Audience

Friends who like snowboarding.

People who speak Mandarin in Seattle.

Photos of my ex-fiance that Jane Doe liked.

With Facebook’s new Graph Search, you can discover new connections, become an expert social media stalker, or target potential customers and clients.

With Graph Search, search results are now personalized. Whatever you search, friends who fit the criteria will appear first. Public results will appear beneath your personalized results. Try it! Type in ‘Photos of Chicago’, and see who and what shows. You will see photos your friends took in Chicago and every public photo that was taken in Chicago.

To the right of your results, you can refine your results according to gender, relationship status, employer, current city, hometown, former school, friendship and name.

You can spend hours searching anything and everything, but think how you can use Graph Search as a new marketing tool.

You are an ice cream shop owner, and you want to open a second location. You want to gauge how many people enjoy ice cream in the city you hope to open the shop? Search it. Want to scope out your competition’s dominance in the prospective city?  Search it. If a strong potential customer base, and the competition is not too fierce, congratulations! Your small business is opening up second location! For your grand opening, let Graph Search help you get in contact with ice cream lovers in the area.

Don’t worry. Your simple one-keyword and one-concept searches will still work in Facebook’s search engine.

The feature is not available to all Facebook users just yet. In Beta mode, it is available in limited quantities to English (US) users. Type in ‘Graph Search’ on Facebook and see if you are lucky enough to try Facebook’s newest feature.

Want to see Graph Search in action? Watch the above video of Marc Silverstein, President and CEO at On The Marc Media, navigating his way through the feature with the help of PR specialist Izzy.