Using “Facebook Connect” to Capitalize on Social Influence Marketing

Advanced PR Writing

University of Oregon

December 12, 2008

Angela Seits

“1955: Mass Media influences travel through opinion leaders. Individuals then spread, confirm or negate the messages of advertisers through their own social relationships.”

Elihu Katz and Paul Lazarsfeld, Personal Influence

Introduction

Today, more than ever, social media is changing the landscape of the Web. Instead of passively consuming media in its original form, online users are now active participants in user-generated content, with the ability to create, modify, and share media freely. “Digital consumers have moved well beyond merely sampling Web 2.0 technologies and services. They are now adopting these services at a breakneck pace and readily experimenting with new, more sophisticated offerings en masse.” Perhaps the best example of Web 2.0 adoption is Facebook – a social networking platform with more than 120 million active users – which has become the fourth most-trafficked Web site. According to Garrick Schmitt, vice president of experience planning at Razorfish, social networks such as Facebook are successful because they “excel at making users do something instead of just consume something. And they do it best by providing ways to interact.”

As consumers continue to interact and customize their digital experience, tailoring sites and widgets to fit their needs, the Internet has become fragmented into niche communities. Today’s online consumers no longer view singular sites as “one-stop digital destinations” or portals for all of their online needs. Instead, consumers expect that sites will provide opportunities for participation, customization, and distribution to other sites which results in content that is uniquely specific to the interests of a particular user and their community.

Although a fragmented, personalized Internet environment can be beneficial for the individual digital consumer, it presents a challenge for marketers struggling to reach consumers on a massive scale. In an age in which consumers “increasingly rely upon peers for product recommendations,” blanket advertising campaigns are less successful. For this reason, it is crucial that companies find ways to reach their consumers on a personal, targeted level. This can be accomplished by connecting corporations to the users of social networks. The new Facebook Connect has the potential to connect companies to highly targeted Internet users and capitalize on “Social Influence Marketing”.

The most successful companies engaging with online consumers will understand the importance of Social Influence Marketing – a marketing strategy (coined by the interactive agency Razorfish) that depends upon leveraging social media among online influencers to meet business objectives. Tapping into the communities of social networks allows companies to overcome the obstacle of fragmentation and reach consumers who may be more receptive to their product.

“That is a new phenomenon and the most important thing to happen in the world of persuasion since the advent of the radio over 100 years ago.” BJ Fogg, “Fast Company”

Within the Walls of Facebook

Despite the fact that the Web has become increasingly decentralized, Facebook brings users together. Millions of users log in to Facebook daily to connect with their “friends”, update their status, and upload content. Within the “walls” of Facebook, users once again divide into sub-groups, connecting only to their community, but the relationship that users have with their community is very powerful. According to BJ Fogg of ‘Fast Company’, “Facebook takes very strong interpersonal influence dynamics – the way people persuade each other face-to-face in small groups with peer pressure, reciprocity, flattery – and allows those to be used on a mass scale because your social networks are built in. Friends influence friends, who influence friends, and that keeps rippling out.”

The ripple effect created by Facebook’s social networking tools represents a fundamental shift in the way people communicate online. We are no longer seeing an anonymous Internet and instead, we are witnessing the Web becoming a “spider-web-like” space for thousands of small communities in which the users know and influence each other. As we continue to study social media, metrics are being developed for measuring the amount of influence an individual has in relation to their overall sphere of influence.

Although social media experts may not agree on what metrics accurately measure how influential a user is, one thing is clear – users do influence each other online and “crowds” online have an enormous potential to shape consumer-spending trends. For years, marketers wanted to capitalize on social networking sites but had been limited to banner ads that are no more targeted than billboards. This is because user data, on sites like Facebook, had been valuable only to its users within the context of the host site.

Facebook Connect is the next evolution of the Facebook Platform and it gives businesses the ability to tap into an online social sphere that had formerly only been accessible within the context of a social network. Connect takes information from Facebook outside of the realm of its site and interfaces with third-party partners through a “trusted authentication method.” Simply by logging onto a Facebook Connect supported site, Facebook Users are able to experience personalized retail features that interface with their social network.

“The social graph, when linked with traditional websites will radically change how we find, research, purchase, and support products.” Jeremiah Owyang

Portable Social Graphs

Facebook Connect gives Facebook users the ability to carry their social graph, or map of their social connections, with them as they travel around the Web. Instead of manually importing information again and again across several networks, Facebook users can log in to a site using their Facebook username and password. In addition to saving time and energy, Facebook Connect users also receive a personalized Web experience that can be modified based on information they listed on their profile. The flipside is that marketers can use information listed by a user to modify the ads that appear on a site or to target a potential customer with specific products. To take it one step further, companies could select the most influential people of a given community to share product information with, anticipating that the influencer will spread information to their friends.

Although social influence marketing may seem like a long process of “seeding” and “feeding”, research shows that it is a successful method of marketing online. In a survey conducted by Razorfish, 40 percent of “connected consumers” said they have made a purchase based on advertising they saw on a social media site. Nearly half of respondents indicate that they have made a purchase based on a recommendation they received through a social media site.

Facebook Connect has enormous potential for changing the way users interact with sites on the Web and creating opportunities for marketers to reach their customers in a highly selective manner. By examining sites that have already implemented Facebook Connect, we can see that portable social graphs make registration simple, allow users to share site actions back to the Facebook News Feed and provide a way to find existing friends who use the same site. These services are great for Facebook users, but what are the benefits for companies and Web sites who want to connect with social network users?

Because Facebook Connect gives Web sites access to an unprecedented amount of user data, a Web site could analyze how influential an individual user is – based on the number of friends, wall posts and tagged photos – and use that information to market specific products and even offer incentives to the individual consumer who is more likely to spread valuable information. Web sites could also gather data from a user’s profile to suggest products that are relevant to the user. For instance, a user who joined a fan group for Roxy might not only receive product information for Roxy itself, but may also receive information on surf boards, travel to surfing hot-spots and other information that is likely to be enjoyed by a fan of the surfing-apparel company.

Facebook Connect also has potential for improving customer interactions with product reviews. According to the Razorfish Consumer Experience Report, consumers trust recommendations by their peers more than they trust editorial reviews. Facebook Connect takes reviews one step further, allowing users to limit the reviews they read to those created by users in their network as opposed to information posted by strangers. The interface of Facebook with third-party sites allows users to stay connected with their social network while researching products, and ultimately, make purchases while never leaving a company’s site. Imagine a customized Amazon experience or connecting to your friends while browsing iTunes; Facebook Connect would make the digital experience more social than ever.

Conclusion

The implication of Facebook Connect’s impact on retail and consumer behavior is enormous. Marketers have already made huge strides in incorporating social components into their advertising strategies and will likely increase their usage with the ability to selectively target niche groups. Portable social graphs take information that has been guarded behind the walls of social networking platforms and make it accessible across the Web. A seamless interface between social networks and company Web sites will change the way that consumers learn about products, share information and make social networking an important part of their daily practices. Although Facebook Connect certainly has a challenge ahead in remaining stable and safely managing user-data, its potential to alter the landscape of consumer purchasing should not go unnoticed and could possibly give social media the business value it has been in need of.

References

Blog post

Fitzpatrick, Brad. (2007, Aug. 17). Thoughts on the Social Graph. Message posted to http://bradfitz.com/social-graph-problem/

Joel, Mitch. (2008, Oct. 1). You are Expected to have a Social Media Presence. Message posted to http://www.twistimage.com/blog/archives/you-are-expected-to-have-a-social-media-presence/

Iskold, Alex. (2007, Sept. 12). Social Graph: Concepts and Issues. Message posted to http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/social_graph_concepts_and_issues.php

Maltoni, Valerie. (2008, Nov. 3). FEED is about Consumer Behavior. Message posted to http://www.conversationagent.com/2008/11/feed-is-about-consumer-behavior.html

Singh, Shiv. (2007, Dec. 20). Think Social Influence Marketing in 2008. Message posted to http://www.shivsingh.com/goingsocial/2007/12/think-social-influence-marketi.html

Scholarly paper, online

Schmitt, Garrick. (2008). The Razorfish Consumer Experience Report. Retrieved from http://feed.razorfish.com/publication/

White paper

Bentwood, Jonny. (2008, January). Distributed Influence: Quantifying the Impact of Social Media. [White paper]. Retrieved from http://technobabble2dot0.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/edelman-white-paper-distributed-influence-quantifying-the-impact-of-social-media.pdf

Owyang, Jeremiah. (2007, August). Tracking the Influence of Conversations: A Roundtable Discussion on Social Media Metrics and Measurement. [White paper]. Retrieved from http://www.webstrategist.com/blog/wpcontent/uploads/2007/08/track-ingtheinfluence.pdf