Search: Facebook Friends I Actually Like

Question: Do you ever find yourself staring at your Facebook news feed and see:  1.) A status from someone complaining about their love life or workday, or 2.) A wedding date countdown (for someone you most likely only met once, can’t remember how you know them, yet you are aware they are 10 pounds closer to their wedding goal weight?).

And then you ultimately ask yourself– why am I connected to these people? And where are my friends? After all, friends, for a lack of a better definition – are people you are somehow, someway connected to and likely have mutual interests.

Presenting the Facebook Graph Search, a new tool for Facebook users to cut through clutter and find the data, pictures and the friends they want to see and know more about. 

According to Wired ,"Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg described Graph Search as a tool to handle more precise queries than general web search, like “Who are my friends who live in San Francisco, and like both Star Wars and Harry Potter?”.

The benefit for me? Ironically connecting me to real friends with common interests - out of my 1,024 "friends". The real value appears when I look at what it can potentially do from a PR Perspective.

After all, being a public relations professional, your job is to cut through the masses  of people and connect your client to the right audience. You are constantly aiming to get your client in front of the people who care about your industry, product or service.   

If the tool works the way they claim, I would be inputting the following searches for my technology clients:

 -          Who are my friends that attended “insert cloud computing conference here?"

-          Who are my friends that like “insert client’s product name here?"

-          Who are my friends that watched “insert company’s YouTube video here?"

If Facebook can bring these features to a brand level, the results can be game changing. Imagine using Graph Search for press lists, or strategizing your Facebook posts to directly respond to these "friends” and their interests.

What do you think? From a business or professional level? Do you see the added value with the new Graph Search? Share with us.