Guide to Facebook Graph Search & Privacy

It’s hard to remember a time without Facebook. The worlds’ largest social networking site has been a huge part of our lives and businesses since 2004, and certainly shows no sign of slowing down. But the way we use Facebook – whether for business or pleasure – is set to change for good, with the introduction of Graph Search.

Described by founder Mark Zuckerberg as the ‘ThirdPillar of Facebook’, Graph Search is a new way for users to search for just about anything. Looking for a new restaurant, band you might like, or friend of a friend with a mutual interest? Graph Search makes this simple.

Here we take a look at how Graph Search is due to work, and the concerns surrounding this latest update to the social network:

Uses for Facebook Graph Search

This new feature make searching flexible for every users. Turning Facebook into a type of search engine, Graph Search will pull up unique answers based on your preferences, connections, and search terms. Here are just a handful of the search options open to you:

1. Custom and specific searches

Whether you want to search for photos of family members, pictures you’ve liked, or restaurants your friends recommend, Graph Search can help. The fast and efficient search is easy to use, and fully customisable. The search is greatly enhanced compared to the existing option, but might take some getting used to.

2. Meet new people

Graph Search makes it easy to find friends of friends that have interests in common with you. Facebook says this is part of an effort to make your community smaller, and help you increase your connections. If you want to network with more people, this is a great tool.

3. Make use of your friends’ likes

Graph Search will use your friends’ likes to recommend new books, movies, and bands that you might like. You could use this to find new places to visit based on where your friends have already been, and what they like.

As Graph Search is still in BETA though, all of this is speculation based on these tests and Facebook’s own posts and videos. Until it is rolled out for sure, we will always have this slightly biased and distorted look at Graph Search. Because of this, there are a number of concerns surrounding this latest change:

Facebook Graph Search & Concerns

Perhaps the biggest concern Facebook users have is privacy.

With this new search programme, users are unsurprisingly concerned that private information will be made public. After all, people have used Facebook for a long time and a lot of data is held by the site.

Facebook have said that, anything that is set to public could potentially appear in searches. If you don’t want your information shared, now is the time to set all your privacy settings to friends only. This will help you keep the information you want hidden, private.

While we have to wait a while before Graph Search is fully rolled out, it is worth knowing now what it means for you. It is worth remembering users’ initial scepticism when Timeline was first rolled out, and how it is now widely accepted.

Author:

Alan Grainger writes for RBDisplays, a marketing and events company based in the UK.

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