[Weekly Facebook Tips]
by Angela Alcorn
Facebook has just given its Graph Search another boost, and those who have been upgraded are now able to search post history as well as photo history. This has made many people wonder just what sort of uses they might put this to in everyday life. We’ve previously covered some cool Facebook Graph searches, but what sorts of searches might be useful or interesting to a regular Facebook user on a more daily basis? Let’s take a look.
Chat About Your Favourite Topic
Try a search like “Posts about Breaking Bad by my friends” and you’ll be presented with all sorts of opinionated comments by your friends. It doesn’t matter if they wrote them a few weeks ago or just yesterday. If you comment and add your voice to the conversation, it will revive the thread, no matter how old it is.
Find That Old Post
So, you made a comment the other day on some link a friend of yours shared. Now you want to share the link for some reason, but you can’t seem to find it in their timeline. You may not even be searching the right friend’s timeline. Sound familiar? This is where a Graph Search comes in really handy. Search for “Posts by my friends about xyz” or “Posts I commented on” and you’ll find it.
Revive Memories
If you are procrastinating on Facebook and want a trip down memory lane, try checking out “My posts from last year” or “My photos from last year”. This will allow you to mull over your own posts. Or if you just want to get all nostalgic, try the infallible “Photos of my friends I like” or “Photos of my friends and me”. Those will keep you going for days. Memories…
Catch Up With Your Friends
If you’re more interested in your friends and family, check out things like “Photos of my family”, “Photos of my friends from the last month”, or even “Posts by my friends from last month”. Checking out “Photos of my friends from my hometown” will also lead you into a nostalgia-filled haze.
If you want to find out who has been doing interesting things, try a search like “Posts written at The White House”, or limit it to your friends and something that interests you, like a recent festival. For example, “Posts by my friends written at PukkelPop”.
Destination Ideas
If you want to see who’s been holidaying, try something like “Photos of my friends taken in London”, “Hotels in Berlin visited by my friends” or whatever other destination you want to check out. Since you can search public check-ins, Facebook suggests you can also do sneaky searches like “Restaurants in New York liked by graduates of the Culinary Institute of America” or “Cafes in Paris, France, visited by people who live in Paris, France”. If you know your local culinary school name you could probably find the upcoming new restaurants in your area before they get big.
You could even try to find your kind of hangout place by cross-referencing places people go with movies they like. So, if you are looking for a hipster hangout, try searching for something like “Cafes in New York, New York visited by people who like The Perks of Being a Wallflower”. If you’re more into geek culture, try something like “Restaurants in London, United Kingdom visited by people who like The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”.
Meeting Local People For Fun
Don’t forget that Facebook can be easily used to connect with people who like the same things as yourself. I’m sure that was the whole point of Facebook, once.
If you want people to hang out with for the weekend, try searches like “My friends who live in my city”, “Friends in my city who like camping”, “Friends of friends who live nearby and like playing tennis”. If you want to find hyper local Facebook groups, try a search like “Groups people who live in my city are in”.
Find Media Recommendations
If you need a new TV series to get sucked into, here’s a great search for you. Try “TV shows liked by people who like the TV shows that I like”, or even better, try “TV shows liked by friends who like the TV shows that I like”. Thanks to this search, I’ve just added “Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries” to my Amazon wishlist.
Finding new things to check out just keeps getting easier and easier. Don’t forget, this same search is extremely useful to find music, movies, books and apps. You can even mix it up a little. If you’re not much of a reader, search for books liked by people who like the same movies you like, or TV shows, or whatever.
Facebook Graph Search Privacy
Don’t forget that what you see (and what others see) in Graph Search is only what is visible according to the privacy settings of the individuals. If you want to ensure your privacy settings are sufficiently locked down, check out our guide to Facebook Graph Search privacy. Also, check out how people might use Facebook as an interpersonal weaponand how you can see and hide all of your “likes”. You especially want to do this if you’re looking for a job at the moment!
Source: www.makeuseof.com
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