Sunday, June 23, 2013

Facebook graph search update - SEO meets social

Facebook's introduction of the graph search in Jan 2013 is a significant milestone for the company to officially pursue the convergence of social network and search. Media and analysts have viewed the announcement as a commitment to enrich user experience, expand marketer’s reach and establish a new stream of long term revenue. This announcement is not a surprise because Facebook has a great baseline, 1 billion queries per day before the announcement. With that said, below I will provide a brief update on Facebook graph search.

Facebook graph search offers a few benefits to users and marketers. First, users gain richer experience to find relevant content and marketers gain higher engagement. Specifically, search result is social data (personalized - pages, apps, groups, photos and places) based on personal connections and not web data (keyword match across the web). In addition to personalized data, Facebook has 1 billion active users, more than 240 billion photos and over a trillion social connections. Despite the scale, Facebook content is limited to privacy settings.  Second, friend's preferences and likes (movies, restaurants etc) are the most powerful word of mouth advertising. However, one can argue that friends’ recommendations are neither reliable nor salient relative to the public forum such as Yelp.  However, earlier this month, Yelp has expressed a strong interest to partner with Facebook's graph search. This news indicates that Facebook graph search is causing a concern for Yelp and quickly catching up. http://bit.ly/16rBzgK

Facebook graph search is more than search; it is messages, photos, traffic and a culture. The big data platform has many unstructured data and difficult to parse. However, businesses which take the time and investment to analyze, understand and act based on the big data will amplify marketing channel efforts, drive qualified traffics and achieve a higher conversion rate. This platform is well positioned with younger demographic. Thus, it is important that business start early and integrate organic, paid, and earned advertising on the Facebook graph search channel before it is crowded. http://bit.ly/1caxxuA


Below is a chart that highlights how advertisers can leverage key search optimization techniques and social sharing best practice. The process starts with the Facebook page and ends with how you engage and share content. Read more on http://selnd.com/16rCyxw

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