Leverage Facebook's Graph Search in Your Small Business Social Marketing Efforts

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Analysts have been making a lot of predictions lately about how social media and SEO would join hands in 2013. One of the factors that has been driving this change is Google's search engine strength and it’s ever growing presence on the world wide web. 

Social media platforms are currently under a lot of pressure to come up with some form of SEO integration in order to stay relevant.

Facebook's announcement of Graph Search – a comprehensive search tool - is just an example of how social media is evolving to make room for SEO. With developments quickly changing the SEO landscape, it is even more important for small businesses to understand how Graph Search can change the way social media is looked at and how to use it effectively in their online marketing efforts.

Search redefined – Graph Search

The graph search works by providing search suggestions that include groups, places, pages, apps and also people. 

Users on Facebook can search for anything ranging from games their friends are playing to restaurants near them. The search suggestions then take the user to a unique page wherein all the results pertaining to the search are displayed. 

The results on this page are based on several factors ranging from information on your page to the user's connections. You can also trigger web searches through the Graph Search and these results would include results from Bing.com.

Now that you know what Graph Search does, you can use it to leverage your social media efforts. Here are a few aspects that can have a tangible impact on your Facebook page.

Likes and search

The number of likes on your page can have a significant impact on your ranking in Graph Search results. This is because the number of likes on your page is closely related to Graph Search's algorithm. 

A higher number of likes means more number of people trust your page and greater is its frequency of appearing in search results. This in turn means that you page will continue to receive more likes from the search results.

Connections and demographic targeting

Having fans is not the only thing that can help you reach on top of the results in Graph Search. It is also important to be as relevant as possible. Target your fans using demographics such as their location and interests. 

This will give you an equivalent of content authority on Facebook. Not only will this approach help you get quality fans but the Graph Search algorithm also considers demographic factors that your Facebook page presents. 

So if a large number of your fans share the same interest or live at one particular location, there is a good chance that your page would top the search results for those demographics.

On Facebook, information is king

Lastly, what is most important when it comes to Facebook is data. 

The graph search algorithm displays results based on the information that you provide. Providing accurate information has never been as important as it is now. 

You will need to begin using keywords and other SEO tactics on your Facebook page as it will be crawled by the site’s bots. Tagging your photos, adding locations on your posts, and tagging all the people in your photographs is important. The more information you provide, the greater is your chance at showing up on search results.