Social-networking
sites such as Facebook and Twitter make it much easier to keep in touch
with friends and family when you
change jobs or move home. But It can be
harder to find someone you lost
touch with a while ago, such as
an old school friend or a
long-lost relative.
Similarly, getting
in touch with someone who you've never
spoken to before, but want to
connect with - such as a
prospective business contact or
even a famous person can be tricky if you don’t have a shared acquaintance to introduce you. But despite valid concerns about privacy and cyber-stalking, the web is
a very effective tool for tracking people down, provided you know how and where
to look. Simply typing a name into Google isn’t likely to generate useful
results (especially if the person you’re seeking has a common name) and not
everyone uses Facebook, though you’d be mad not to try those options first.
Fortunately, there are plenty of alternatives, many of them tree. In this
feature, we reveal the best ways to find people online, and explain how to make
contact once you've located them.
How to Search People on Facebook
With
more than 1.23
billion monthly active users (according to figures from December 2013 (newsroom.fb.com/Key-Facts), Facebook is by far the best place to start looking
for someone online, because there’s a good chance they’ll have an account on
the site. Obviously, there are factors that will have a bearing on your
success, including how common their name is whether they’re interested in
social networking or if they even use the web at all, but it’s definitely worth
a try.
If
you’re a registered Facebook user, you can search for another person on the
site simply by entering their name in the search box at the top of the page.
The best matches will be displayed, and revised, as you type. The search
filters let you narrow the results down to just actual people, as opposed to
pages. groups and apps with similar names.
Facebook
also lets you expand your circle of friends by listing ‘people you may know’ - that
is people who are friends with your friends - which is useful If you remember
what someone looks like but don’t know their surname (or even their first
name’). Just click the Find Friends option on the left-hand side of the page
and browse the list.
You
can also search for people on the Find Friends page, and refine matches by
adding important details. So alongside the person’s name, you might include
their town, location, the school and/or university they went to, their current
or previous employer and so on. Another option is to browse a friend’s list of
friends, if their privacy settings allow this, and follow a potential trail
manually.
When
you find the person you’re looking for, click the Add Friend button to submit a
friend request and wait for their response. If you can’t see an Add Friend
button, the person may have adjusted their privacy settings to prevent random
strangers from contacting them. Click ‘Send message’ to drop them a line, this
will appear in their other inbox rather than their main one and they can decide whether or not to respond. If you don’t use
Facebook, you can still search the
social network at www.facebook.com/find-friends, although the results are limited unless
you sign up. Facebook recently
removed the option to hide your profile from search results, which may
be seen as another blow to online privacy, but is useful it you want to find
someone!
How to Search People on Google
If the person you’re looking for doesn’t have a Facebook account, the next step
is to Google them. Put their whole name in quotes - “Swaraj Rai” for example - to
ensure Google focuses its search on the full moniker. Unless the person’s name is
very rare, the search will probably return hundreds of thousands of results.
Try filtering the findings by adding identifying details, such as a town or city
they've lived in. any schools or colleges they went to or the type of job they
do.
Google
presents the results it believes are most relevant first, with an emphasis on
those that have been recently updated, Use the ‘Search tools’ option under the
main search box to filter the list by country, time and location. You can also
use the ‘Advanced search’ feature by clicking the Settings (cog) icon and
selecting that option. This lets you include and exclude specific words and
narrow your search results by various criteria, including region and date
range.
Although
Google+ is nowhere near as popular as Facebook, the increasing ubiquity of the
social network means It could help you track someone down who you may not find
elsewhere. Log into your account, go to plus.google.corn/people/find and browse
the list of suggestions. You can also search for people by clicking Discover
and entering their name in the search box at the top of the page. Google+ integrates
with your YouTube subscriptions, so you can follow and contact people and companies
whose videos you like.
A recent change to Google+ means you can now email anyone you follow on the social network, even if you don’t know their email address. The message goes straight
to their Gmail inbox but,
unless they reply, you can only contact them once.
If you use Google+ and don’t like the sound ci this new feature, you can opt
out by going into your Settings in Gmail and changing the ‘Who can email you
via your Google. profile’ in the ‘Email via Google+ section to ‘No one’.
How to Search People on LinkedIn
Although LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) is aimed at professionals, and few users actually spend much time on It (they typically just sign up. add friends and colleagues, and update their career changes), it’s an excellent means of tracking down people you used to work or go to school with. You can search by name, company or educational establishment, and connect your email accounts (Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and others) to look up your contacts on the site, see who they’re connected to and get suggestions for people to add to your network. You might be surprised by some of the faces and names that appear. For example, when we were browsing the list of people that LinkedIn thought we might know, we found an old work friend who wasn’t on Facebook. The most impressive thing was they appeared as a ‘third-degree contact’ (that is, a contact of a contact’s contacts), arid had no discernible link to us through the network. This goes to show that even if you think it’s unlikely a particular person won’t use LinkedIn, they may have just signed up out of Curiosity. Send them a ‘connect request’ and you could soon rekindle your acquaintance.
Obviously,
LinkedIn is also the best way to get in touch with potential business contacts,
even if you’ve never met them (or know them by reputation alone). You can send
messages to people in different ways, including through the web site d the
company they someone works for (If its listed), or by chatting to them directly
if you’ve added them to your network. However, if you want to message a second-
or third-degree contact, you’ll need to request an Introduction from someone on
your network who knows that individual.
LinkedIn
also offers a service called InMail, which is included with its paid-for
subscriptions, and lets you send a message to anyone on the social network
without needing an introduction or their contact details, If you have a free
Linked In account, you can buy i to 10 InMail credits, which cost £8.55 for
one, £24.54 for three, £40.53 for five and £79.89 for 10. Bear in mind that the
people you contact are under no obligation to reply, but if you don’t get a
response within seven days, you’ll be given another InMail to send. Find out
more at bit.ly/inmail338.
Unlike
other social networks, LinkedIn shows you names people who have looked at your
profile in the last 90 days, and tells other users that you’ve viewed their
details. Just click the profile link and select Who’s Viewed Your Profile,
You’ll need a Personal Plus account to see the full list of people who have
viewed your profile and to discover how they found you. The Personal Plus
account costs £7.32 a month. You can turn this feature off by adjusting your
privacy controls to keep your profile anonymous.
How to Search People on Twitter
If Facebook and Google are drawing blanks, its worth trying Twitter (twitter.com) in case the person you’re searching for is an avid tweeter. The easiest way to find them is simply to type their name into the main search box and browse the results that appear on the People tab. Click the Advanced search option to specify criteria such as location, and the names of accounts that person might mention.
You
can also track people down by clicking the Discover link at the top of the page
and choosing the ‘Find friends’ option. Click ‘Search contacts’ next to your
email provider and enter your email login details. This will find anyone in
your address book with a Twitter account so you can follow them in a single
click.
As
with Facebook, you can also find someone on Twitter via people you already
know. Just comb their Followers and Following lists and click Follow next to
any names you recognize. Remember that you can only send a direct (private)
message to a Twitter if they’re also following you, although you can publicly
tweet anyone who hasn't blocked you.
