How Will Facebook Search Impact Your Online Experience

Imagine a world where your family has just arrived at home from a variety of events and places, and they decide they want to have dinner together. Its late – cooking would mean eating late in the evening. So they decide to call up a local pizza place. Yet they don’t want “the same old” pizza they always eat. Why not try something new?

So they head online, type in Google, and pull up a list of pizza places. If you do that right now, chances are you will get the big pizza places – Dominos, Pizza Hut, Papa Johns – whatever is big in your area. And you might get a few local places, but only the one’s that have spent extensive time and energy on search engine placement.

Maybe you wanted something new. Something that your friend at work was talking about. He mentioned a place they tried last week; now if you could only remember what it was.

In the near future, you may not have to remember. It may be possible to search based on your friends knowledge and recommendations, not just who made top ranking in Google.

And it won’t be through Google. It will be through the second largest search engine in the world.

Facebook.

Yep, Facebook.

Right now if you head over to Facebook, search involves finding a friend by typing in a name, or finding a business by typing in a keyword or a business name.

Yet if rumor has it right, they may be developing a search engine that works slightly different than Google. This search engine won’t care what keywords you use, how much you’ve paid an SEO firm, or how much you are paying for PPC. Instead, it will care about things like:

  • Likes
  • Profile interests
  • Offers claimed
  • Friends interests
  • Geographical location
  • Status updates
  • Quality inbound links

And that could really change the way we currently behave online.

If you were to define what search means, you would probably come up with a definition like this:

Search is about delivering relevant information to what the user is asking for.

Yet relevance is in the mind of the beholder.

And while some love finding new things and discovering new approaches, studies consistently show we value our “friends” above all others. If someone we “know” recommends something, it gives us a lot more motivation to want to use it too.

So if you look for a pizza place in Google, Dominos will be at the top.

But if you search Facebook, your friend’s recommendation of Mike’s Pizza Place will surface instead.

And not only can you get the name, chances are your friend wrote something about it. “You’ve got to try the Margarita Pizza – its to die for.” Wouldn’t that motivate you to try the Margarita pizza?

Okay, now that you see how it works with pizza, what about photography?

Let’s say a new mom wants to have a portrait of her brand new baby girl. If she searches in Google, she will receive links to those that have spent the time developing their content and meeting Google’s specifications.

But if she searches Facebook, she may see the woman in her Lamaze class just posted beautiful photographs taken by a local photograph. And when she says “these images made me cry, I’ll treasure them for always”, who do you think this new mom is going to call?

Yes, Facebook search doesn’t exist … yet.

But knowing it may in the very near future, what are you going to do today to increase your chances of being included?

1. Build up your Facebook page.
2. Fill it with content.
3. Get active in the community.
4. Build Like functionality into all your blog posts.
5. Get people talking.

Dig Deeper: 8 Ways To Gain More Followers On Facebook and Keep Them Interacting

Dig Deeper: How To use The Facebook Like Button

The more you do now, the more you’ll be ready “IF” Facebook Search comes to light.

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clientexperience@todaysgrowthconsultant.com' About Virtual Photography

We're the co-founders of VirtualPhotographyStudio.com and have been writing on this blog since 2004. We started Virtual as a way to help photographers stretch beyond a part time income, and develop strategies to become a Five Figure Photographer or a Six Figure Photographer. Ultimately its all about lifestyle, and if your goal is to live as a photographer 24/7, we think you should have the knowledge and the tools to do so. Welcome!