Just when you thought Facebook couldn’t get any less private alongs comes Graph Search. Facebook Graph Search (as in Social Graph) was first introduced at the beginning of the year but has been quietly rolling out to all Facebook account holders over the last couple of weeks. You’ll know if you have Graph Search if the top section of Facebook has a giant search field.
According to Facebook “with graph search you can look up anything shared with you on Facebook, and others can find stuff you’ve shared with them. Each person sees unique results. ” For instance if I search for people who work at executive protection the results will be my friends. I do have the option on the results page to refine the search to people who are not my friends but the results will still be unique to me based on my friends’ friends – a much wider circle, a result over 100 people, but still unique to me.
On the premise Facebook’s Graph Search makes it much easier to find people with common interests and occupations. The graph search also makes it easier for marketers and advertisers to find the right audience for the products and services they are selling. So expect more ads.
Control Your Privacy
To Facebook’s credit they do offer a few tips to control your privacy. For other security options look for a small lock symbol to the top right of your Facebook news feed. This is a shortcut to your privacy settings and features to see what your profile looks like to those who are outside your friendship.
I also highly recommend that you take a good hard look at your privacy settings on a regular basis. To view your privacy settings click on the cog wheel to the very far right of the Facebook page and select Privacy Settings from the menu. Pay particular attention to Security, Privacy, Timeline and tagging, and Apps sections.
Why would you want to go through with all these adjustments? A simple Facebook Graph search for Executive Protection revealed lots of folks who are sharing way too much information and/or not concerned about their brand.
For example one gentleman who has been in Executive Protection for more than 20 years has posted a picture of his house, where he works – a very visible bank and what floor he works on.
