Recently, Mark Zuckerberg and his crew released their third pillar to the ever-changing Facebook platform with Graph Search. Joining the Newsfeed and Timeline, Graph Search was born into a lot of hype, questions, and concerns about its impact on online searches, marketing, and privacy.
Good people of the Hotel Industry, let me guide you through what this means for your business.
Graph Search Overview
First, let’s get acquainted with Graph Search. If there is one thing the Zucklehead wants you to know, it’s that Graph Search is not a search engine. However, Graph search does represent Facebook’s larger efforts to move from just communication sharing to information sharing. With Graph Search, searching for a term will generate relevant results from friends, places, and pages that already exist. For example: you can search something like “friends who like British Airways” or “people that like Florida and live in Chicago” and people that fit that query will appear. The thing that truly makes Graph Search interesting and important to marketers is that the searches being conducted on Facebook are chock-full of intent. The searches are basically polling their friends for suggestions on what to buy, watch, do, etc. This presents huge opportunities to advertisers that can now target audiences at incredible new levels. For example: Joe’s Bed and Breakfast could now advertise to current customers’ friends who are in the market to go on a vacation.
Why It’s Important to Hotels
If I didn’t hook you there, listen up because it gets better. Why should you care? Because Facebook cares. Facebook views travel as inherently social, and they plan on playing a larger role in years to come. They have already taken their first step by hiring the first Head of Travel, Lee McCabe.
Now, we’ve all seen The Social Network so we know Zuckerberg is a smart guy. He’s proving it here again by going after the travel industry with the Graph Search. Where the Graph Search fails with some industries, it fits perfectly with hotels. Google search is probably better suited for inquires about things like doctors or dentists, but hotels are a different beast all together. Graph Search works because people love to share pictures from vacations and talk about their stays. Therefore, finding a hotel based on your friends’ preferences comes naturally.
Here’s where Facebook gets a little creepy. Marketers can also use Graph Search to learn the likes and dislikes of their audience as well as their competitor’s audience. You can search what books they like, what kind of music they enjoy, where they have traveled recently, etc. Once that data is collected, you can base a whole social media strategy off it. Another thing Graph Search enables hotels to do is the see the “check-in’s” and photos tagged at the hotel. These used to be invisible to us as marketers, but by the mighty hand of Zuck, we can now see what kind of information is being shared about our hotel.
Finally, searching has become social. With Graph Search, a higher potential reach can be achieved through user searches. If you are still doubtful that people will actually use Facebook to plan their vacation, I’ve got news for you. It’s already the third most popular use for the Graph Search behind searching for friends and photos. So why is the Graph Search important to hotels? Because people are using it to find hotels. Facebook is right, travel is social, and travelers trust their friends’ opinions. The Graph Search can show them “likes” where search engines like Google can only show them links.
What Now?
Now that we have established Graph Search as a legitimate contributor to online hotel marketing, you may be asking yourself what your hotel should do. The main thing that you need to do is to make sure your page is categorized as “hotels.” It seems simple because it is, but without the correct category, your business won’t be showing up in searches for hotels.
Besides that, things haven’t changed too much in the Facebook game. You still need to optimize your page with cover photos, regular posts, and interaction, and you still need to create an active and engaged audience. Though, the Graph Search does give extra motivation to boost your page’s “likes.” To Facebook, the number of “likes” a page has is an indication of the business’s credibility. Think of it as the wisdom of the masses. Similar to a yelp listing with many positive reviews, pages with more “likes” will be given preference in the search results.
Wrap It Up
In conclusion, no, Facebook will not replace Google. Graph Search is Facebook’s long-term project aimed at bringing a social experience to online searches. Things aren’t very different yet, but that will change. Graph Search has given us a glimpse into the future and a new understanding of what direction the industry is heading. It seems inevitable that the social search will stick around, and just as many methods of online searching before it, it will evolve and take on more importance. As the online travel sector grows increasingly competitive, the more you know and prepare now to optimize your Graph Search visibility, the more successful you will be in the future.
