By Chris Bell, April 30, 2013
While the big news lately has been all about the announcement of Facebook Home, Facebook Graph Search continues to be a subject of debate for search marketers. The basics of Graph Search have been known since Facebook’s January 15th announcement: it’s a new search utility within Facebook that allows for phrase-based searches that return results based on users’ relationships and activity. Graph Search queries can include such things as “photos of my friends before 1990” or “all pizza restaurants that my friends like within 10 miles”.
This new feature directly challenges Google-style keyword search marketing model and has strong implications for the future of PLAs and CSE’s. Graph Search creates a strong alternate channel of information for purchasers as they work to gather online information and reviews of products. For example, we often use our social media channels for information on products we’re interested in. This behavior is anticipated by the way Graph Search works. Since one can construct searches such as “friends of mine who like Toshiba HDTV model xyz,” Graph Search will return results gathered from any mentions by the user’s friends in their timelines as well as traditional Bing! Search results. The actual search results are — so far — sketchy, but as more users use Graph Search and more brands participate, Graph Search could pose a major challenge to Google’s PLA model.
Simply put, Facebook is trying to eat Google’s lunch. Chris Winfield at Blue Glass Interactive agrees. In his article, Winfield describes how Facebook is claiming that it is not competing with Google and even offers the possibility of future partnerships. I feel that this is simply PR baloney on Facebook’s part, as Bing web search results usually show up in most Graph Search queries. Winfield points out that Facebook will drop Bing like a hot potato if the situation on the ground changes, but my bet is that Facebook has too much invested with its current relationship with Microsoft.
No, I feel that Graph Search is, amongst other things, a direct attack on the dominance of Google’s product listing ads. Essentially, Facebook Graph Search takes normal keyword-based search (powered by Bing!) and wraps it up in strips of relationship-based insight that Graph Search mines from the Facebook user community. This adds another layer of creamy relevancy and enables ads to be better targeted towards buyers.
The drawbacks? In order for this to work, Facebook needs to have users like and feel comfortable with Graph Search, especially as a means to share review information on products and services. This is something that can’t even be promoted – it has to occur organically. If Facebook can cook this pot, then Facebook can offer placement in graph search results in a way similar to how Google sells paid search.
Graph Search will only be successful if it attracts a critical mass of users and if the search algorithm can detect enough meaningful data occurring within conversations about brands to be of use for advertisers. If this happens, Graph Seach could indeed become a viable alternative to traditional PLA’s — and a hefty new revenue stream for Facebook.
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