Page 154 - Social Media Marketing for Dummies

Starting with Search

“In the beginning, there was Search.” Okay, we’re paraphrasing, but just as you
do with any good investigation into a subject, you may want to start with a search.
When you’re determining what’s already on Facebook and how that relates to
your own SMM plan, you want to use Facebook Search, which you can find in the
header of Facebook after you’re logged in.

You can narrow your search by clicking the options below the search bar:

» All Results

» Posts
» People
» Photos
» Videos

» Marketplace
» Pages
» Places
» Groups

» Apps
» Events
» Links

By starting with a search, you can get a good understanding of what exists in your
product or service category. For example, if your category is productivity, you can
enter that search term and get the results. You can also filter the results based on
who published them, their type, location, and date that all appear down the left-
hand column. Then you can use one of the search categories such as Apps, as
shown in Figure 8-1.

The idea is to get an understanding of your customers, competition, and Facebook
users’ way of doing things. We recommend that whenever you want to investigate
a question about the Facebook universe, start here.

Think of your consumer and the terms they would use to search in your product
or category. Don’t use terms that only people in your industry would know. It’s
important to put yourself in your consumer’s shoes as you start searches in Face-
book to determine who your real competiton is.

138 PART 3 Reaching Your Audience via Mainstream Social Platforms