DISCLAIMER: This post is written as a live blog from Mozcon. There may be typos and grammar to make my high school English teachers weep. Please excuse those … it’s a fast-paced conference with back-to-back sessions and no time for proofing or even proper writing.
David Mihm from Moz takes the stage to chat Facebook search and some handy tools.
He begins by discussing you should care. The reason … um .. they’re huge. To get a different feel though he points out that Facebook users are conducting 1 billion searches/day.
Of all time on a browser – 86% of time browsing on a mobile phone is spent via Facebook.
It is a huge opportunity but worth noting – it’s already huge not just something for the future. But no one is paying attention to it. We’re all Google-focused.
Timeline
Sep 2012 – 1 billion searches
January 2013 – Graph search launches (“people who like x you may know”)
August 2013 – Graph search becomes just search adding Posts to the results types not just people.
December 2014 – Facebook drops Bing results
March 2015 – Facebook buys TheFind
May 2015 – “Add link” feature added allowing people to find a link through the search box to find it through the Facebook app giving them a huge library.
May 2015 – Tries to hurt Google by allowing publishers to to publish directly on Facebook and monetize it.
Audience Building Today
It’s combining Modifiers, subject, verbs ad objects. Something like:
SEOs who like Mozcon and who live in Canada
This is very similar to freebase.
Interests are also a parameter/node type. You could adjust it to:
SEOs who like Mozcon and who live in Canada and who are interested in beer
Head’s up – you can reduce that down to:
SEOs in Canada
and get the same results. 😉
You can also construct /str queries allowing you to look or keywords in a post type. Finding job seekers on blogs for example.
Giving results David shows the relevancy of results and the use of personal data and friends to provide that. An advantage over Google to be sure.
Choosing Content
You can find the interests of people who like your page. This can help you get not just their interest but also use this in the crafting or accompanying images. (if they all like The Simpsons then use that)
This can also help you craft messaging.
You can also find other pages your fans like. Maybe a good place to get guest articles or use the display network to remarket and hit others who are probably like your audience.
Influencer Research
You can find “Journalists” who live in “Seattle” to isolate the people you should probably reach out to. This is a great strategy I’m sad to say I’ve never thought of and am now kicking myself.
You can also filter people who like your page by position. You can reach out to them as VIPs.
You can also find people who use Yelp (for example) and ask them to check in. They’re more likely to give a review without violating Yelp’s guidelines.
If you’re looking for an internal cheerleader you can search people at other companies that like your company. Now you know who to reach out to there.
You can also target by status like engagement and offer them something.
TIP – you can enter full profiles and Facebook will let you know their other networks.
TIP Too – an awesome widget for filtering can be found at intel-sw.com/blog/facebook-search/
Moving On
Move beyond the Facebook Like. It has a low value. Focus on Shares.
Shocking – his big takeaway is o write good content and get it shared. 🙂
Implications
Facebook ignored local search in the last update. They have a great set of results which is why this is frustrating.
Check-ins and reviews are driving this. If you have local clients – getting ahead of this curve is critical.
Facebook is getting more interested in mobile so a big play is coming (he estimates the next 9 to 12 months)
He highly recommends reading https://moz.com/blog/facebook-graph-search-guide