The best part about Facebook is getting back in touch with old friends. There’s no better place to reconnect with your college buddies or past coworkers than Facebook – the largest social network on the planet, with 400 million members.Even if Facebook’s Friend Suggestions does a wonderful job of helping you discover new friends, there are better ways to conduct a Facebook people search for those you are interested in.
In this article, let us look at tips for doing a Facebook people search more effectively. We will cover both Facebook’s inbuilt FriendFinder as well as a third-party application for advanced people search. Note that these searches find people based on the information they have entered in their Facebook profile.
Facebook People Search with FriendFinder
Facebook Friend Finder is a collection of search tools to help you find people you know on Facebook. You can access the Friend Finder page from the Connect With Friends widget on the right sidebar on the Facebook homepage.
Let’s see the different ways you can conduct a Facebook people search using Friend Finder.
#1: Find People From Your Email Address Book
Facebook can find people for you from your email address book. All major webmail services like Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail are supported.
If you use desktop email apps like MS Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird, or Apple Mail, click the Upload Contact File link from where you can download an app for Outlook or upload contact lists from other apps.
#2: Find Classmates
Based on information in the Education and Work section of their profiles, Facebook helps you find former or current high school or university classmates.
#3: Find Coworkers
Similar to the Classmates search, you can also search for Coworkers in your past or current organizations by entering the name of the Company.
#4: Find People From Instant Messaging (IM) Networks
You can simply enter your AOL, ICQ, or Windows Live Messenger credentials to let Facebook find your IM buddies.
Advanced Search Application
Advanced Search 2.0 is a better tool to search for friends on Facebook. Visit this link to access and install the application.
If prompted to share your email address, click No, and click Click here to add the “Advanced Search” application link at the bottom. Click Allow in the Allow Access? prompt to proceed. Advanced Search first prompts you to fill out your profile and contact information to help others find you. You can choose to enter additional information about yourself if you like or leave it blank and click Save and Continue. You can optionally invite your friends to try the app or Skip that step. Finally, click Add Bookmark to access Advanced Search quickly from your profile.
After you complete these steps, you can access Advanced Search at any time by clicking the Applications link in your Facebook sidebar.
#5: Find People by Age/Gender/Relationship Status/Star Sign
On the Find People tab, you can search for people of a specific Gender and within a certain Age group. You can search by specific Relationship Status, or by their Star Sign. You can even search for people who have the same Birthday as you.
#6: Find People by Location (Country/Region)
You can combine the above search restricting to a specific Country, Region, and City. For example, you can search for single people in your area according to their Star Sign and who they are interested in meeting.
#7: Find People with Similar Interests
For each of the above searches, you can further refine them to find people who share your interests. You can find people according to their Political preferences, or their Religious beliefs. You can restrict searches to people who are members of a Facebook Group.
Best of all, you can use this to find people who are fans of a specific Artist, Celebrity, Politician, Author, or Product/Company Facebook Fan Page.
Using Advanced Search 2.0, you can mix and match these search criteria to your hearts content. This app currently indexes profiles of about 240 million people in its database. The lesser criteria you use, the more people you will find.
