HispanicBusiness

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM -- (Marketwire) -- 03/07/13 -- Following Facebook's introduction of Entity Graph, a new feature which identifies semantic connections between Facebook search queries and potential results, brands should ensure their Pages are optimised as well as encourage fans to regularly check in as a means of enhancing their overall visibility in Graph Search, says integrated PR, social media and SEO agency, Punch Communications.

Introduced in January 2013, Graph Search marked the beginning of Facebook's move into offering a social search experience for its users, on the platform. To develop Graph Search into a search engine that further understands the meaning of query phrases and better maps the real world, Facebook has launched Entity Graph.

Made up of approximately 1 billion people and 150 billion friend connections, Entity Graph enhances connections between search concepts to deliver relevant information on people, locations and products as opposed to only serving Facebook pages. For example, if a user searches for a brand, rather than simply providing a link to its Facebook page, Entity Graph's knowledge may help Graph Search to present results including current employees of the company and physical locations.

Consequently, to influence the connections in Entity Graph, and therefore the visibility of businesses and associated pages, places and people in Graph Search results, companies and their social media agencies should encourage Facebook fans to frequently check-in, should they have a physical location to do so.

Furthermore, Entity Graph will also positively impact Graph Search queries by establishing the connection between acronyms and synonyms. This supports the belief that optimising content on brand Pages will influence Graph Search results. Brands should therefore ensure content is optimised for the synonyms they want Entity Graph to associate with their brand or product, in order to increase the number of associated connections in a Graph Search.

Pete Goold, managing director of integrated PR, SEO and social media agency Punch Communications, says: "Entity Graph is supplying its well-rounded knowledge to Graph Search, which allows it to associate search queries with multiple synonyms, acronyms and location information. For example, if someone uses Graph Search to search for 'software engineers in London', Entity Graph will be able to understand that information relating to 'coders' will also be relevant, and so has the knowledge to present a wider net of relevant results."

Product manager for Facebook's entities team, Mitu Singh, describes Entity Graph as "trying to map what the real world looks like onto Facebook so you (users) can run really expressive and powerful queries." Singh also mentions that people are now more willing to contribute information and amend false information written on places pages.

Goold continues: "As more people participate and influence Entity Graph's knowledge, Facebook will be more able to accurately map real world connections. Brands should be aware that although Facebook is encouraging users to amend incorrect Places pages information via its Places Editor, this should only affect businesses where users have created the check-in on the company's behalf and therefore, incorrect data may be present."

Punch Communications is an integrated agency, offering PR, SEO and social media services. For more information about Punch and how its integrated approach differs from other PR companies, please visit www.punchcomms.com.



Contacts:
Punch Communications
+44 (0) 1858 411 600
[email protected]
www.punchcomms.com