Village Gamer

Businesses looking to top the results on Facebook Graph Search need to focus on upping their “Likes”, “Check-ins” and exert a greater control over their business information in Facebook, according a new study by Mediative, a leading digital marketing company and division of Yellow Pages Group. Graph Search is Facebook’s newest approach to structured search, generating results on a given query exclusively from a person’s network of Facebook connections.

“It’s important for our clients, and businesses in general, to understand how Facebook’s Graph Search will affect their visibility and level of engagement on the platform. As one of the only marketing companies in Canada with a research lab equipped with eye-tracking technology, we decided to see firsthand where Graph Search directs the user’s attention,” said Patrick Lauzon, President of Mediative.

In an eye-tracking study of 21 participants conducted in Mediative’s TiveTank™ research lab in Toronto, Mediative discovered that user interaction with Facebook’s Graph Search differs from how people process results generated by a typical search engine.

With Graph Search, there is little horizontal scanning of results which normally leads to the classic Golden Triangle pattern associated with large search engines. The user’s eye tends instead to move in a vertical line down the left side of the page.

The top two listings on the page receive the most attention from users and text actually draws more attention than images, particularly among the top results where a text listing captured attention almost three times faster than the accompanying image.

“The same query conducted by different users will generate different results based on the recommendations and likes of the people in their network. So engagement and interaction become paramount for brands. Moreover, businesses need to make sure they’re updating their information regularly, encouraging “Likes” and “Check-in” activities as well as eliminating duplicate Facebook accounts associated with their business in order to rise to the top spots in Graph Search results,” continued Lauzon.

For full research results, insights, and implications for local marketing strategies, download the whitepaper from Mediative’s website.