Brands see local gains from Facebook's Graph Search

MUMBAI: Marketers in India are on their toes in the social media space studying the attractive business possibilities offered by Facebook's latest launch, Graph Search, a tool that will allow users to search for information relevant to their lives - on people, places, products and services - using data of their friends on the social networking site.


Graph Search is an internal search engine that allows you to find things based on the interests and recommendations of friends and also their friends.

So a user will be able to search for recommendations of everything from restaurants and movies to photos of friends taken in a specific city. This throws up new opportunities for using FB as a local marketing tool.

Graph Search will take a couple of months to play out but marketers reckon the new tool can provide a huge opportunity for brand activation.

After all, typical Facebook users love to show off their experiences to friends and acquaintances, and their recommendations will provide brands with a new platform to engage with consumers.

"Crowdsourcing of opinion is a reality and a few web portals are already doing it. With Facebook getting into the fray, it gives the concept a sudden scale as more consumers are getting digitally inclined. Though we can't manage opinions we can at least have opinions about our 1410 cafes," says K Ramakrishnan, president (marketing) at Cafe Coffee Day.

To be sure, retail-oriented businesses with brick and mortar outlets can get a leg-up from Graph Search as they have a good chance of garnering fan recommendations.

"Any brand with a large fan base will see lot of conversation on its pages. Graph Search now provides an opportunity for an actual endorsement from others, which has much more meaning and convincing power than our advertisements," says Vinay Bhatia, vice-president, marketing, at Shoppers Stop. The lifestyle retailer has over 4 million fans on its facebook page, making it the seventh largest brand in the country.

Social media experts say marketing of movies, books and music can benefit from Graph Search. Says Hiren Gada, director of Shemaroo Entertainment: "It will bring together people with common interests; so say if there are R D Burman fans, a marketer will be able to filter that out and use that information in his strategies. Entertainment marketing will get a big boost."

Brands that have already begun leveraging FB will now get more power to their elbow. "A lot of conversation on our facebook homepage influences our programmes," says Ramakrishna. "For instance, our music and menu at cafes are a result of some of the conversation that has happened on social media," he adds.

Social media experts say Facebook gives brands tremendous direct access to people's views, suggestions and ideas, thereby becoming a highly valuable consumer research centre. Brands will now encourage more participation from fans and user-generated content, so as to appear on Graph Search organically.

Cadbury is another brand that is active on social media, with Cadbury Celebrations, Cadbury Dairy Milk, Cadbury 5 star, Bournville and Oreo all amongst the top brands on Facebook in India. Chandramouli Venkatesan, director, India (snacking) and Asia Pacific developing markets (chocolates), is taking a close look at Graph Search, although - like many marketers ET spoke to -- he says it is still early to assess how brands can leverage it to the fullest. "Our endeavour is to build strong connections with our fans day in and day out hence we strive to look at this space not as 'social media' but more like 'social relationship marketing'," says Venkatesan.