Facebook Graph Search: Know Your Audience Better

Target your audience precisely with Facebook Graph Search

How do I activate Facebook Graph Search?

Nothing could be simpler:

1. Go to your settings here: https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=account ;
2. Change “Français (France)” to “English (US)”;
3. Save your changes;
4. Reload the page: You are now on the US version of Facebook.

Clicking on the search box at the top of Facebook should see something like this:

Welcome to the matrix.

How do I use Facebook Graph Search?

1) Search by issuing queries

You'll see, it's not much different from Google. Let's take an example if you want to know what photos “Kevin Machin” commented on, you just need to type:

Pictures commented by Stephen Curry

And there, the public photos that he commented on all appear. If you want to know if the friends of “X” support the President of the Republic, you type:

Friends of “X” Who Like Emmanuel Macron

Do not panic: if you do not know the English language, the CNIL has thought of you and provides several requests with their equivalence in French.

2) Super Spy Technique (for geeks)

I present to you FBStalke, a python script, developed by Keith Lee, an analyst at Trustwave. It is a computer security company. This script works not only through the information that your profile collects, but also through that of your friends.

From a simple Facebook profile, the tool will obtain:

• A list of all friends;
• The list of all the “likes” (photos, status, pages...);
• A list of all the check-ins (where the person reported);
• A list of all comments posted;
• A list of all of the person's other social accounts

This therefore allows:

• To manipulate anyone (social engineering);
• To trace the entire life of a person with whom you have no connection (except the name on FB).

FBStalker is only available on GNU/Linux OS at the moment. To download it click here: https://github.com/milo2012/osintstalker. The documentation is given in the README. Once again, I leave you with a video to see the results that this can provide:

A very complete PDF published by the researchers behind FBSTalk is available here: read the PDF. This presentation also explains GeoTalk, a similar tool that allows geolocation all of a person's trips using their social accounts (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc.)

How to protect yourself and disappear from Facebook Graph Search?

You're going to laugh. Today, the answer is simple: we can't. Let's distinguish between everything that can be found on Facebook Graph Search:

• “Statuses/Photos liked by X”: If you liked public posts, your like is also public. Cannot be removed from Facebook Graph Search.
• “Statuses/Photos commented by X” : the same as the like, it all depends on the status of the associated publication.
•  “Statutes/Photo published by X” : If you post private things, they won't appear in the Facebook Graph Search, along with all the associated “likes” and “comments.” Unfortunately, we like photos and status pages of brands, companies or public figures all day long. These pages publish everything in public mode by definition: your likes are therefore trackable, this is the big danger of Facebook Graph Search.
• “Pages liked by X”: It's impossible to hide that too. Your page likes are public.

The only solution I found: delete your Facebook account and, at worst, recreate a new one that you won't like anything about... except for your friends' private content. But it's very difficult, let's be honest. You might as well stop Facebook completely.

BONUS: the list of ALL possible requests

Here is the exhaustive list of all available requests. You can of course combine them for more fun...

Search for an audience

Finding people through their work:

• People Who Work at X
• Friends of People Who Work at X
• People Who Work with Me at X

Find people via the pages they like:

• People Who Like X and X
• People Who Like X and Visited X
• People Who Like X and Visited X-City/State

Find people you don't know but would be interested in:

• People Who Are Not My Friends That Work at X
• People Who Are Not My Friends That Like X
• People Who Are Not My Friends That Live in X-City
• People Who Are Not My Friends That Go to X-School
• People Who Are Not My Friends That Work at X and Live in X-City
• People Who Are Not My Friends That Work at X and Go to X-School
• People Who Are Not My Friends That Work at X and Like X
• People Who Are Not My Friends That Work at X and Visited X
• People Who Are Not My Friends That Work at X and Visited X-City/State

Search your friends:

• My Friends That Work at X
• My Friends That Like X
• My Friends That Live in X-City
• My Friends That Go to X-School
• My Friends That Work at X and Live in X-City
• My Friends That Work at X and Go to X-School
• My Friends That Work at X and Like X
• My Friends That Work at X and Visited X
• My Friends That Work at X and Visited X-City/State
• My Friends Who Work at X
• My Friends Who Like X
• My Friends Who Live in X-City
• My Friends Who Go to X-School
• My Friends Who Work at X and Live in X-City
• My Friends Who Work at X and Go to X-School
• My Friends Who Work at X and Like X
• My Friends Who Work at X and Visited X
• My Friends Who Work at X and Visited X-City/State

Finding new groups of people:

• Groups of People Who Like X
• Groups of People Who Like X and X
• Groups of People Who Like X and Go to X-School
• Groups of People Who Like X and Visited X
• Groups of People Who Like X and Visited X-City/State

Find people via where they work:

· People Who Work at X and Like X

· People Who Work at X and Live in X-City/State

· People Who Work at X and Go to X-School

· People who work at x who visited x

· People Who Work at X Who Visited X-City/State

· People who work at x and like x and x

· People Who Work at X and Live in X-City/State and Visited X

· People Who Work at X and Live in X-City/State and Go to X-School

· People Who Work at X and Go to X-School and Visited X

· People Who Work at X and Go to X-School and Like X

· People Who Work at X Who Visited X and Live in X-City/State

· People Who Work at X Who Visited X and Go to X-School

· People Who Work at X Who Visited X and Like X

· People Who Work at X Who Visited X-City/State

Discover what people like

Finding everything someone likes

· Favorite Interests of X-Person

· Favorite Interests of People Who Like X

· Favorite Interests of People Who Live in X

· Favorite Interests of People Who Like X and Live Nearby

· Favorite Interests of People Who Like X and Live in X-City/State

· Favorite interests of people who like x and visited x

· Favorite Interests of People Who Like X and Work at X

Find pages someone likes:

· Pages liked by people who like x

· Pages Liked by People Who Live in X-City/State

· Pages liked by people who like x and work at x

· Pages Liked by People Who Like X and Live in X-City/State

· Pages Liked by People Who Like X and Go to X-School

· Pages liked by people who like x and visited x

· Pages liked by people who like X and visited X-City/State

· Pages liked by people who live in x-city/state and work at x

· Pages Liked by People Who Live in X-City/State and Go to X-School

· Pages liked by people who live in x-city/state and visited x

· Pages liked by people who live in x-city/state and visited x-city/state

· Pages liked by people who live in x-city/state and like x

· fans of x and x

· Fans of X and X Who Live in X-City/State

· Fans of X and X who go to X-school

· fans of x and x who visited x

· Fans of X and X who visited X-City/State

· Fans of x and x who work at x

· fans of x and x who like x

Find a business or a service

A health service

• Dentist Offices in X-City/State
• Dentist Offices near X-City/State
• Dentist Offices near X-Location
• Doctors near X-City/State
• Doctors near X-Location
• Dermatology Clinics near X-City/State
• Dermatology Clinics in X-City/State
• Dermatology Clinics near X-Location
• Skin Care Places near X-City/State
• Skin Care Places in X-City/State

Find businesses/locations:

• Places in X-City
• Places That X-Friend Visited
• Places That People Who Work at X Visited
• Places That People Who Work at X and Like X Visited
• Places That People Who Work at X and Live in X Visited
  

Read these related articles to better understand web data collection

1. ‍What is web scraping?
2. Is web scraping legal?
3. How do I find emails?
4. Selection of tools to automate your most time-consuming tasks
5. Select Chrome extensions to facilitate your Growth Hacking tasks
6. Selection of Essential Growth Hacking Tools for LinkedIn