Facebook Graph Search and Local Marketing in the Philippines

Makati City

With facebook making graph search available in the entire US, digital marketers must take note of its potential for local marketing. That means also you, the SEO specialist, digital marketer or social media specialist employed in various companies here in the Philippines. 

But what about the small business owners who have a facebook page and are either tech or non-tech savvy? Forward.ph has got you cover with this starter post about optimizing your facebook brand / business pages in preparation for the graph search when it rolls forward in the Asia-Pacific area. 

1. Where are you?

      Since graph places a huge emphasis on geo-tagging of photos and check-ins, make sure that your business address is correct and present. No business address and your establishment not showing up on check-ins and photo tagging maps means you're not ready for graph search. Get it now. 

2. Vanity URL a must!

     This is important as having a vanity or customized URL makes it easier to find your page. We recently posted about how you can secure a vanity URL and its other benefits about local marketing. When graph search was introduced in concept, it was optimized for better visibility of pages, people and photos in a specific area and other places of proximity.

3. Tag Pictures of you, people and places

      The facebook graph functions like a search engine (i.e. Google, Yahoo!) that is aimed in finding content extensions made by friends, pages and groups. Aside from typing a friend's name or specific place, there will be commands for much more exact and specific searches. Here is the tutorial from facebook in using those basic commands. (Filipinos will have them imprinted at heart in no time.)

Back on topic, if you are among those who have Graph search available when you chose to try it out for BETA, here are basic commands that gets brands excited for social vouching, that is as potent as word of mouth marketing when it comes to facebook habits.

Places that my friends visited - Lists the most recent places where your friends checked in. Be sure to tag those content images / photos for events and as much as possible, have some connection facebook with the people in attendance.

Photos taken by (Insert Friend's Name) in (Insert Location) - This is a very specific command that searches for photos taken by a friend in a defined location. Now there are a lot of reasons behind typing this command as per facebook user, but in a local marketing standpoint, this gives ample exposure for your brand. For example, you have a great restaurant with a lot of photos being taken by customers (They are sure to post and tag it and check-in) and when a friend or family searches for it, you are getting the exposure via the social vouch. 

Events with a lot of pictures are searchable in Graph

4. Tags and Check-Ins

       As we pointed out earlier, local marketing based on social influence whose requirements  are check-ins and tagging areas on where those photos / videos are taken. So begin tagging geographically and make sure that it is genuine and accurate.

5.  Rules of Engagement

     With so many brands and pages being added everyday, facebook introduced an algorithm called EdgeRank that significantly cut timeline displays of commercial posts and placed much more emphasis on friend / connection posts for the sake of facebook's intended function. This does present challenge for brands and pages about the visibility of their posts. EdgeRank favors posts by pages that have people "sharing" it and "commenting" on it as well as number of LIKES that are taken in consideration. The more shares, comments and LIKES means greater chances to be visible over a period of time. Remember, you are not the only brand or type of page that your followers LIKE.

Forward.ph who specializes in Local Marketing in the Philippines for SEO, Social Media and PPC can implement graph search optimization alongside Local and geographic SEO for the best results.