This new upcoming feature from Facebook is currently in beta, but its functions and capabilities are already listed out to the public. You can join in on the wait list if you really want to have early access to it, or if you live in the USA, you are already in the beta program.
Anyways, about the Graph Search. In my opinion, its really a more advanced way of searching for people, place, and things. For instance, you can search up friends or people who live in a certain place, such as Los Angeles, New York, etc. You can even search friends who might have similar interests as you such as friends who like basketball, gaming, running, etc. Basically, it helps you search people who fit the criteria you want on Facebook. Of course, people get paranoid about privacy on Facebook, so there are ways you can set what can be searched, so there’s no need to worry about being exposed to the public.
In my opinion, I think this can really benefit companies by taking advantage of this new feature. This is because I believe Facebook is already a giant database full of people’s profile. With the Graph Search, I think it’ll just enhance Facebook’s database and make it easier for companies to do some market research since there will be richer consumer data for companies to analyze. Also, the Graph Search connects people of similar interests as Facebook users can connect people who have the same interests. This already helps companies a lot because as long as they have a big presence on Facebook, whenever a Facebook user “likes” their business page, they can just see what kind of people are under certain groups and see what they’re interested in, where they work, etc. This can really fortify companies’ understanding of their consumers in distinct Facebook groups with people of different interests. Although these groups already exist, the Graph Search will just make things a lot easier to find and locate on Facebook. Basically, it’ll be more efficient and less time consuming to do searches on Facebook.
However, I could be wrong with my assumptions as the Graph Search is still in beta, who knows what add-ons or changes Facebook might add before it’s available for everyone to use!