Today at F8 Facebook announced radical changes to their API offerings. They introduced a concept they call Open Graph. By using something called Social PlugIn's any website can benefit from the social currency they have on Facebook. Social currency is the value a brand has in the people connected to it on Facebook. It works like this; If Toyota runs an ad on Facebook and they have lots of fans, every time someone on Facebook sees the ad they also see people they know that already 'liked' it. This is important because Facebook has data that says social currency in ads perform better than ads with no social currency. Meaning, people are more engaged in content and more likely to remember it if they connect it to people in their social graph.
Social Plug-ins can be added to a website with just one line of code. The interaction can take several forms. A website can use a toolbar across the bottom like Meebo does now or they can add a 'like' feature next to content. I just tested this out with Pandora, one of Facebook's launch partners. I was on Pandora and Matt Nathanson started to play. I clicked on his link and it took me to Matt's artist page where I found a Facebook like button. Two things to note here;
- This builds Social Currency. I was able to see how many other people 'like' Matt. Since none of my friends in Facebook have 'liked' Matt yet their names didn't show up. But 2 other people had 'liked' Matt and that showed up (screen shot below). The value of this to brands is fans can now show their preference for a brand without going to Facebook. I fanned Matt on Pandora, not Facebook, but it still feeds my newsfeed and sends a status update to my network. When people in my Facebook network see I 'liked' Matt on Pandora they can click on the link and it drives them back to the Pandora page for Matt.
2. This could drive dramatic growth for a brands fan size through Earned media (impressions the brand gets through someone taking an unpaid action that drives a brand impression).The more fans a brand builds on Facebook the more impressions they drive every time they make a status update. In addition to the increased impressions they will likely see a bigger lift in their advertising since more social currency has proven to deliver a higher brand awareness for their ads.
Facebook also announced that the data collected through these 'likes' will feed a person's bio information which up until now has been static. When a person signs up for Facebook they put in their favorite TV shows, movies, music, etc but rarely doesn't anyone ever go back and change this. The information becomes dated and isn't as reliable for targeting. With the social plug in's feeding a persons bio the user data will become much more relevant and targeted for advertisers. Sticking with the example above I didn't add Matt to my list of music I like on my bio but since I've 'liked' him through Pandora he will now show up in my bio information – hence more specific targeting data.
Facebook's goal is to take the information from around the web and organize it by people and the network of friends they care about and trust. This is definitely a win for brands and Facebook. I would guess it will drive additional Facebook sign up's as well as drive people back to Facebook that have registered buy aren't regular users. For brands adding one string of code to their site is a complete no brainer. Bringing social currency to a brands website layers customer advocacy to the experience a brand could never have delivered without Facebook. It will be exciting to see how prevalent this becomes and what type of fan growth it drives.
Windows7 Social Media Case Study
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