How to Search Social Media by Photo to Reconnect With an Old Friend

How to Search Social Media by Photo to Reconnect With an Old Friend

Sometimes seeing an old photograph makes everything freeze for a moment. It was lying in some book and a shoe box or maybe you see it accidentally when browsing your mobile device. You look at the same face and think how much they can change, where they need or what they are up to. It looks natural to look for this person on the internet.

But if someone’s surname does not ring any bells, or they changed their surname, or you simply want to see them after all those years, then you will never find them using their name. Yet, what you have now is worth more than a single name. You have their face and that is what should guide you further in the search.

When a Face Is All You Have

Names can be changed for many reasons. People get married or divorce, so they change names accordingly. It could also happen that your old acquaintance simply decides to rename himself online. There are various chances that he no longer uses the nickname you remember or his full name and has left those social media sites you assumed he would still use.

Pictures work in another way since a person looks pretty much the same way despite changing names. Besides, with all those years of social media activity, a picture of him most likely can be found somewhere on any of those social media websites. It’s not about the name anymore but about the face itself. That’s why a lot of people start using reverse image search from the very beginning of their journey.

The Limits of Standard Image Search

Of course, when you need to search social media by photo your very first instinct will be to use Google Images. Upload a picture, perform an image search, and analyze what results show up. It is true that Google does provide valuable service, as it allows you to look for photographs published online in websites, blogs, articles. However, if your subject of interest has been published in a press article or has a personal website with his/her photos uploaded there, then there is a chance to receive an output.

As soon as we refer to social media, everything changes radically. First of all, Instagram and  Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, Twitter and  all this social media has not been included into Google indexing. All the private profiles, deleted and hidden accounts do not show in the search results either. Thus, if your subject is actively using social networks to promote himself/herself or to communicate, you will not receive any results with the use of Google Images.

Similarly, TinEye faces the same problem. The search engine was specifically developed to identify how far a particular photo spread out on the Internet but it was never meant to find individuals using social media.

How to Search Social Media by Photo the Right Way

However, what one really requires is a tool that is tailored to be used in social media one which searches social media for photos, matching faces rather than just documents.

Face2social https://face2social.com/ is a product that is created to help people reconnect with an old friend using social media face search. All you have to do is to upload a photo and let the system find out where this person may be hanging out and under which name and on which platform. In many cases, this will be on platforms where you had no idea you should have been looking.

But most importantly, this is a powerful product to help people to reconnect via photos as old as they can be. The reason is facial recognition is being applied and  you do not have to provide an exact photo but rather the face you are trying to identify. That is why if you have a fifteen year old photo where your friend looks very differently, then this will not hinder your search at all. The facial structure changes very little over time.