Most of you probably know how it feels when you can’t find your date’s social media account, or try to discover what your kids do on social media and what accounts they have. We are all familiar with that feeling when you know it has to be somewhere, but you are not quite successful with your search and can not find someone on all social networks. The first thing people try is using the search bars that are included in social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, or others. The search bar is the first tool that is available alongside the possibility of searching on Google for the person’s full name with the words “Instagram” or “Facebook”. That can be helpful for some unique names, but if the person has a common name, chances are you will get thousands of results that you will have to sift through.

Fortunately for you, over the years, people found numerous alternative ways to discover how to find someone on social media. First, we want to make an important disclaimer: you should not use these techniques to cyberattack people, as they are intended for you to be able to make sure that your kid is safe or that your potential romantic partner doesn’t have some hidden secrets that could be devastating for you. You can even use them to see what you can find under your own name to see what other people would be able to find out about you.

Find Social Media Accounts

The first method that has proven to be effective, is the Google Image search function that the giant search engine made available for everyone, for free. Of course, there are always people who will believe that this isn’t any different from a usual text search. Well, you might be surprised, but using the Google Image search function will put everything in front of your eyes, without the need to click on every single result that you would get in an ordinary search.

To find someone on all social networks, you can start with visiting images.google.com, and putting the person’s full name into the text box before you hit “search”. A good method of narrowing down the number of the results is to add an identifying tidbit about said person, such as the school he/she went to or the city he/she lives in. After this, just scroll down and look for the person’s face in the list of results, as there is a high chance of discovering the profile picture from Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, or other social media platforms.

After you have identified the picture, click on it and go ahead, select “View Page” so it redirects you to their social media profile. Sometimes the person will post the same picture on Instagram and Facebook, thus, you’re getting two birds with one stone. Some ways of how to find someone on social media can be a skill that will benefit you when you will expect it the least, but also check out their profile bio, as it’s possible to find links to other accounts.

SignalHire

If you are looking for a more efficient and professional way to find social profiles on LinkedIn, Facebook, and others, you have the possibility to turn to a professional social media finder, such as SignalHire, that has several helpful functions. Of course, this is mostly targeted to companies that are looking for social media influencers, but who says that you cannot benefit from it as well?

The email finder platform has useful functions and all kinds of filters and columns that you can customize to maximize the potential of your quest. It is a great and efficient way to get contacts of the people you are interested in. If you’re looking to expand your reach beyond email, you might also find it helpful to learn how to find out a Twitter account by email or phone number or explore Instagram lookup methods to connect with your audience across platforms.This is a great method of tracking someone down on the Internet, especially if you are a company that is looking to expand its marketing potential by contracting influencers to promote your product or service. After you install the extension, you will get access to several useful features that you can benefit from immediately.

Facebook Phone Number Search

We bet that you had absolutely no idea that Facebook has a phone number search option. There is a setting that allows other people to search and find you on Facebook, just by searching your phone number. As many people enter their phone numbers in the Facebook profile and probably don’t bother to check all the settings. Of course, there is an alternative to using an email hunter platform, like the one we described above, but sometimes all it takes is a quick search by a phone number. For broader methods to locate accounts using phone numbers, see our post “How to Find Social Media Profiles with Phone Number for Free“.

There is also the Twitter hack that not many people know about. So, when you enter Twitter, you will find the option of finding your friends by synchronizing your e-mail contact lists with it. What you can also do here is to add an e-mail address to “My Contacts” in Gmail. After that, you can ask Twitter to look for matching profiles. If the person you are looking for used that address to open a Twitter account, it will be shown in the results list. Additionally, you have the option of accessing the “Manage your contacts” section and check exactly how each address matches (or not) a profile.

Facebook Graph Search

The main idea of this tool is to enable all users to easily track down information by using the search function with the connections of their profiles. There you also have the tool of searching public lists, so, for example, you could easily search for “People who use dating apps” and find out what your options are regarding this subject.We want to mention that not everyone is open to making this kind of information public, so they may have edited their privacy settings to not shareable. A useful fact: the option of graph search is available only to users from the US. The solution is simple, just change your language settings and select “English (US)” and boom, you have access to the graph search function. The reason why you might not know about this is that Facebook realized this function could enable locating some sensitive information about their clients, and they stopped talking about it a while ago.

Even if the social media finder didn’t list the person that you were looking for, you might find former colleagues from their previous place of work. Take a quick visual search through their friends’ list, as you have great chances of finding a person with a changed name. Unless this person has air-tight privacy settings and doesn’t want to be found at all, you have high chances of finding him/her using email hunter platforms or just by applying the above-described tricks.

Image source: pixabay.com

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Expert in translating SignalHire's technical capabilities into practical user strategies. Specializes in bridging the gap between platform features and real-world applications for contact discovery, recruiting workflows, and sales CRM integration.