Will Graph Search help Facebook work commercially?

Facebook’s unveiling of Graph Search this week may interest -- and even delight -- the social network's users, but where is it leading commercially? That is the question digital marketeers are asking already.

Andreas Pouros, the chief operating officer (COO) at London-based digital marketing agency, Greenlight, was quick to comment, "Many had expected Facebook would have launched a new mobile phone today or thrown down the gauntlet to Google and challenged the company in web search supremacy, neither of which happened.

"Web search is a touchy subject as everyone knows that it is a hugely lucrative market, and one Facebook was expected to enter."

Mr Pouros said he feared investors would suspect that Facebook is making too little progress gthrough Graph Search.

Facebook's Graph Search is a smart search engine which allows people using Facebook to more quickly find answers to questions about friends in their Social Graph.

Greenlight and Mr Pouros's analysis calls the announcement a "story of three halves".

"On the one hand, users will be very happy to get this new functionality that Facebook is calling Graph Search," he said. "It is innovative and powerful, and will allow people to search within Facebook, albeit restricted to what they can see and read right now.

"It allows the user to search across people, places and interests using structured queries, e.g. ‘Friends who like Star Wars and Harry Potter', or more usefully perhaps ‘Which restaurants do my friends like in London’. Ordinarily the user would ask that question by posting it on their wall, now the tools are there to allow the user to just search.

"Innovative, very cool and the first major addition of functionality Facebook has seen since Timeline."

Mr Pouros said businesses were likely to become more visible within Facebook given that many of these searches will bring up their pages in Graph Search results. However, this may simply offset the reduction in visibility brands have experienced due to Facebook’s Promoted Posts mechanism that has limited the exposure of brand posts on user newsfeeds -- where businesses are prompted to pay for their post to reach a wider audience.

"Also, it is unclear at this stage if or how Facebook will monetise Graph Search," Mr Pouros said.

"Ultimately, this is progress, which is welcome, but whether this is good for everyone rests on if and how Facebook chooses to monetise this new mechanism, and to what degree it is a stepping stone to a more aggressive product strategy."

Mr Pouros leads an an international team of search consultants, developers, programmers, and copywriters at Greenlight, providing to well-known brands including Santander, New Look, Sky and several government bodies.

www.greenlightdigital.com

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