Dealers - Are You Prepared for Facebook Graph Search?

[Aaron Wirtz (blog)]

Let's add "Car Wash & Detailing" to the list of subcategories.

 

[georgenenni]

I received some great comments and questions, and wanted to share some additional research I’ve come across.  Some of the early testers for FBGS talked about the usefulness when traveling to a new city, checking for “friends who live in Atlanta” and gets connected when you arrive.  A few folks felt the design style was heading toward a style like the old AskJeeves.com. My Facebook contacts said they are very much in test mode, and very little has been determined.  For car dealers, Facebook is trying to determine how many categories they will allow dealers to index. One idea is to give retailers every subcategory in a top-level category.  For instance, giving dealers all subcategories in the top-level Automotive category.
 
One conclusion is that Facebook’s future play will be around the Nearby function available on the Facebook mobile app.  Facebook considers Nearby to be both the most useful and unknown function in Facebook mobile.  Currently on Nearby, Automotive is not a category, but likely will be in the future.   However, “car dealerships” or “automotive” pulls up businesses in that category.  The search algorithm for the Nearby function seems to be based on location, likes, ratings, categories, and friend-network relevance.  Since Facebook is clearly under the privacy microscope, they will likely stick to indexing only on public information.  Facebook Graph Search and Nearby offer a unique way for people to search for businesses that friends care about.  I’m extremely interested in how dealers can best prepare for the future of this new platform.  Thanks again for your comments and question, keep them coming and I’ll try my best to track down the information.

 

[vickioneill]

@georgenenni Thanks for the follow-up and providing updates on the topic. It will become increasingly important for us to understand car shoppers decision making process and how dealers (and their marketing investment) play a part in the mix. Here's an article I read this morning regarding the growth of hyper local this year. Whether it's FGS, FBN, Google, geo-fencing, mobile or other local targeting efforts, it's never been more important than now to make sure your brand is easily "found" via mobile. And once there, it will require ongoing monitoring and management to maintain placement. FGS has certainly taken the way people find information to the next level. Do's and don?ts of hyper-local mobile advertising | Marketing Dive

 

[hawkchev]

@Jim Bell

 

[hawkchev]

@Jim Bell
 I can only enter 3 sub-categories....is there a way to add more?  Is there a different place?

 

[georgenenni]

@hawkchev  @Jim Bell  That is the most number of categories I've seen dealers be a part of.  I think FB is considering adding more, but no idea of ETA.