As you might know, I’m a big fan of Facebook. It’s the social media platform I use the most and am the most comfortable with. One of the features Facebook has been quietly developing is their search function. I’m starting to use it more and it’s shown me helpful results. In some cases, it is more useful than Google’s search engine.
The other day I needed to find a plumber – but I don’t know any plumbers. While I could do a Google search to find a plumber in my area, I preferred asking my friends for recommendations. In the past I have asked for recommendations on Facebook (i.e. when I needed someone to fix our roof and do landscape work) and have gotten helpful suggestions from my friends. But this time I decided to use the search feature on Facebook.
Some of my friends had also asked for plumber recommendations. And THEIR friends had given them several recommendations. It was actually quite helpful to see the comments that their friends left, and the recommendations.
Using Facebook search in this circumstance gave me immediate plumber recommendations (rather than posting on Facebook and waiting for my friends to respond). Using Facebook search also gave me good plumber recommendations without having to post the question to my friends.
Here are a few other useful ways to use Facebook search:
- Which of your friends live in a city that you will be visiting (so you can find a local tour guide or bum a meal off of them)
- Posts from your friends about Italy, so you can get recommendations for places to visit and restaurants to eat at on your vacation
- If you’re applying for a job at a company, you can see which one of your friends (or friend’s friends) work at the company or have mentioned it in a past post (LinkedIn is also useful for this)
- Finding the name of that person that you met at a party who your friend introduced you to
- Photos of you and your cousin together (or any two particular people tagged in a photo)
- Events happening this week that your friends are going to so you can find something to do (or if you’re just nosy and want to see what’s going on)
- Friends in your city that like a musician, so you can find people to go to a concert with
- What your friends are saying about the latest big trade in sports (or another recent event)
How can a business owner or entrepreneur take advantage of people’s use of Facebook search? Here are a few recommendations.
- Write where you work on your Facebook profile and make this information public. If you are tagged in a post, make it easy for someone to see your business and how to contact you. For example, if my friend’s friend is asking about websites and my friend tags me, it is easy for the person who asked (and anyone searching in the future) to click on my profile and find a link to Coracle Marketing’s Facebook page and website. When I clicked profiles of the plumbers that people recommended, it was surprising how little information I could find about where they worked or how to contact them.
- Be present on Facebook (especially if you have friends that are eager to recommend your services). Respond to the posts where people have tagged you and recommended your business.
That’s it. Two recommendations. Nice and simple.