This afternoon I got to thinking about various opportunities for businesses to leverage Facebook and realized that Facebook is not taking advantage of one of their greatest opportunities: search. A few months ago, Microsoft announced that they were going to begin offering Microsoft Live search results for Facebook as well as search ads. So far nothing has been implemented.
The most important search results on Facebook is people but many users are regularly search for specific products and services within Facebook yet those products and services are not the first results that are displayed. Most often you need to click on the “Pages” tab to find any of the brands or services. In the case that it’s a person, a fan page will regularly show up but this only appears to occur for people.
So how could Facebook help businesses leverage what’s currently an unrealized opportunity? Simple: sponsored results. If I search for “Ford” and was looking for Ford Motors and not my friend who’s last name was “Ford”, a sponsored ad will show up at the top of the search which directs me to the “Ford Motor Company” fan page. I’ve produced a sample image below of what this could look like.
Currently Facebook has the curse of extremely engaging pages. The site is so engaging that most people don’t even realize that there are ads on the side of most pages. The one place where I’d suggest that this trend breaks is when people search for things. At this point there is an amazing opportunity to grab the user’s attention.
How many people are searching for Ford on a regular basis? I don’t know but enough people are writing about it that it shows up in the Facebook Lexicon, which tracks the frequency of words on walls. If people are writing about it, then it’s probably pretty good assumption that they are writing about it. While Facebook doesn’t currently monetize their search, this is a quick way for the company to boost their revenues while they keep searching for a breakthrough advertising solution.
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Comment by Connie — August 30, 2008 @ 5:42 pm
I can't believe they never have and still have not utilized this tool yet, I think they should invest heavy in their search facility and capitalize from it.
Comment by Facebook_Member — September 1, 2008 @ 1:38 am
It a very good idea!
Comment by tirag photo — September 1, 2008 @ 12:16 pm
Good one NickI think social search is at it's very early infancy stage. Not only can you leverage your friends searches results but also your community content to make your own search far more targeted and relevant to you…
Comment by Manu — September 6, 2008 @ 4:14 pm
I have predicted it too 6 months ago and here is why:facebook pages will become real websites inside facebook! so users can interact with the brands inside facebookso why to search on google??Sam <a href="http://www.FacebookSpin.com” target=”_blank”>www.FacebookSpin.com
Comment by sam77g77 — September 9, 2008 @ 9:18 am
[...] I wrote a couple weeks ago, Facebook search provides a great monetization opportunity. With all of Facebook’s traffic, millions of users [...]
Pingback by All Facebook » Can Facebook Become the Next Google? — September 9, 2008 @ 1:50 pm
I have been trying to promote my product through the advertising programs of Yahoo and Google. Both I have found to be very tine consuming in setting up my ads. Yahoo gives you the crazy letters to read that can not be read if your eyesite is not to standard, and Google, you just don't know where your ad is . Also, the costs of their search word program is marketing roulette. What can Face Book do for my product of the Sonic Spark Plugs?
Thank you: Dave Wofsey,
Chief Agent for Sonic spark, LL
Comment by David Wofsey — February 26, 2010 @ 1:15 pm
this is not n=nick for your information.
Comment by latezia — March 2, 2010 @ 5:01 am