Presentation Transcript

1. Social Media Sign-Onsfor Subscription Sites

   Letting site visitors create accounts using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ & other social media platforms
2. Table of Contents Why Should You Use Social Media Sign-Ons? How It Works – What Subscription Sites Need to Know Options for Integrating Social Media Sign-Ons Choosing Which Social Media Platforms to Use Top 5 Ways to Optimize Social Media Sign-Ons Useful Links & Resources

3. Why Should You Use Social Media Sign-Ons?

4. “Research by Forrester, Nielsen and others shows that each [customer] gained via social login is far more valuable than traditionally-registered users. Indeed, social login boosts conversion rates up to 50%, and, though the data comes from Facebook itself, it appears that these users tend to spend more timeon a website and purchase morethan non-social login users.” “Social Login Offers New ROI from Social Media” by Larry Drebes. Published October 26,20122 at http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/10/social_login_offers_new_roi_fr.html
5. 3 out of every 4 Internet users leave a website rather than taking the trouble to create a new account, according to the Harvard Business Review. Among those who do register, say they give false or incomplete information. 76%
6. 77%of social media users say sites should offer social login, according to a study by Janrain. 42% of the same respondents feel companies that offer social sign-in are “more up-to-date” and “innovative.”
7. And nearly half of respondents admit to leaving a website rather than going through the trouble of resetting a password or answering security questions.
8. Social Sign-Ons Not Just for B2C Sites! Since installing social logins in June, Business Journals reported a 12% increase in site registrations across 40 online properties. B2B sites can also let visitors sign-in with their Salesforce account(see slide 6), which gives you a business email address.

9. How It Works

   What Subscription Sites Need to Know
10. Social media sign-on options are usually presented on a navigation or catfish bar.
11. Site visitors can then choose which social media platform to login with. Or they can choose “regular registration” with an email and password.
12. You can also ask current registered users or paying subscribers to link their account with a social media account.
13. Or, if an existing user tries to login with a social media account, you can cue them to link accounts.
14. If the visitor is not logged into their social media account, the social media platform will prompt for that.
15. The selected social media platform then asks the visitor for permission to link their account to your website and share information.
16. You can alter these permissions requests.
17. These permissions requests will also vary by social media platform. Not so popular an option with me!
18. Once a visitor is logged in, you can then take them to a landing page asking for more information… This landing page showed up after I logged into Strategy+Business with my LinkedIn account. It’s asking for more information about my past work experience.
19. …or offer them your usual conversion offers.
20. What You Get After a Visitor Signs-On In most cases, you get access to a personal email address, along with other customer information (see slide 31 for a comparison chart of what info you’ll get from different social media platforms). This information can either be automatically integrated into your email and database management systems, or stored on a third-party vendor’s cloud-based storage system.(See here, here & here for more info on the latter.) Note: You may have to tweak your database to take full advantage of social login info since you’ll get information you’re not used to getting, like interests, gender, network connections, sharing activity, etc.
21. What Subscription Sites Need to Know Social Sign-Ons are great for freeregistration, not paid subscriptions. This is because you can’t charge a subscription to a social media account, with the exception of Facebook and PayPal. (And these two platforms don’t give you a credit card number. Facebook also takes a 30% cut of your revenues.) This is what you want!
22. So Why Integrate Social Sign-Ons? Get a higher conversion rate of visitor-to-registered-user. Get more customer data (see slide 31) Visitors using their social media account to login are more likely to share info from your site (Each login visitor generates an average of 13 referral visitors to a site, according to Harvard Business Review.) Because social networks authenticate individuals and their information, thelikelihood of false customer data and spammers goes down.

23. Options for Integrating Social Media Sign-Ons

24. 1 2 Direct APIs Third-party Vendors Some social media sites have APIs that your Webmaster can integrate into your code. The problem is that : You must manually update the API when it changes You must install separate APIs for each platform Third-party vendors can integrate multiple social media platforms with your site. Keep in mind: Vendors vary drastically in price (from free to steep) Users can be overwhelmed by the number of choices, so you’ll still need to select which platforms to use. Time-consuming Easily install multiple platforms
25. Selecting Which Option To Use Most of you will likely choose this option Before deciding whether to use a direct API or third-party vendor, decide which social media sites you’d like your users to use. If you only want to use one platform (and believe your users will be satisfied with one choice) and you have a great Web developer on staff, it may make sense to use a direct API.

26. Choosing Which Social MediaPlatforms to Use

27. Facebook Direct API 2 million sites have integrated Facebook Connect and 250 million people are using it. Facebook is by far the most popular social network. Link Info for Facebook’s API: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/guides/web/#login
28. Google+ Direct API 2nd most popular way to login to a website. But offers little customer data (see comparison chart on slide 31). Link Info for Google+ API: https://developers.google.com/+/api/oauth
29. Twitter Direct API Fewer users, but tend to be high influencers. No email address given at all. Link Info for Twitter API: https://dev.twitter.com/docs/auth/implementing-sign-twitter
30. LinkedIn Direct API Great for B2B sites! LinkedIn lets users set how long your site has access to their account. Options are 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, or “until revoked.” Link Info for LinkedIn API: https://developer.linkedin.com/documents/authentication
31. Comparison Chart of Customer Information Available via Different Social Media Logins
32. Information Depends on Users, Too Your ability to get customer data will also be affected by what information a visitor has actually entered into their profile and their own permission settings. I have intentionally left this information blank in my Facebook profile.

33. Top 5 Ways to Optimize Social Media Sign-Ons

34. 1. Offer multiple options Using a third-party vendor makes this best practice easy to implement. WARNING: Don’t offer every option – it’ll overwhelm visitors. Just offer the most popular ones for your audience.See the last slide for links to some possible vendors.
35. 2. Have big buttons with icons
36. 3. Offer regular registration Alwayslet visitors sign up the old-fashioned way – with an email address. This is especially true for adult content sites! Some visitors, especially those that are Internet-savvy, may be wary of using their social media account or want to keep certain info separate.
37. 4. Prompt for more information A landing page lets you collect information that the social media platform does not give you. But be careful! The more information you ask for, the more likely your conversions will decrease!
38. (Or prompt to link an existing account) You may want to have 3 options for linking accounts: For existing users, you can encourage them to login with a social media account Link Now! Maybe another time No, thanks
39. 5. Encourage sharing! Make sure your pages have share links for different networks, not just the social media platform a user signed-on with! Send your social login customers an appreciation message. Encourage them to invite their friends and network to view content on your site.

40. Useful Links & Resources

41. Some Options for Third-Party Vendors Janrain: http://janrain.com/ Has free option Great for small to medium-sized sites OneAll: http://www.oneall.com/ Tiered pricing (Free, $9, $29, $69, $189 monthly plans) Gigya: http://www.gigya.com/social-login/ Great for larger sites No pricing plans available on site; must get quote Login Radius: https://www.loginradius.com/ No pricing plans available, must get quote
42. More Resources for Marketing With Social Media HOW-TO: Social Marketing with Twitter HOW-TO: Getting Your Content on LinkedIn Today HOW-TO: Drive Traffic With Pinterest While Protecting Your Premium Content HOW-TO: Getting Started with the Facebook Ad Manager: Six Lessons to Help You Launch Your First Campaign ON-DEMAND: Paid Subscription Marketing via Facebook Ads CASE STUDY: Facebook Integration Fuels Growth for Genealogy Research/Social Networking Membership Site