In March 2010, Facebook surpassed Google as the most visited web site in the U.S. This marked the first time that a social networking site had ever topped the charts of U.S. web browsing statistics. In years past, the chart had been dominated by search engines/portals (Google, Yahoo, MSN) and free home page providers (anyone remember Geocities?). Facebook’s ascension signals a distinct shift in the way society consumes content on the Internet.
So, what does this mean to you?
As a webmaster/marketing guru, you should always be looking for new ways to promote your website and drive traffic to it. Facebook is not only a web juggernaut in its own right, but Facebook freely provides tools to tightly integrate your website into the Facebook experience that millions of users experience daily.
Here are a few examples of how Facebook integration can enhance and promote your site:
Shared Login – Let’s face it, users don’t want to have to sign up for a new account every time they find a new site they like. Every site has different password requirements. Their preferred username may already be taken. They may simply consider the process of e-mail verification “too much hassle” to bother with signing up for an account. You can fix this by allowing users to login through their Facebook accounts. No new username, password, or e-mail verification is needed. Assuming Facebook provides all the user information your site needs, there doesn’t need to be a user creation step at all. A simple one-click Facebook authorization is all that is necessary for your users.
Wall Posts linking to your site – Facebook provides interfaces for posting content to a user’s wall without actually needing to be on facebook.com. On your website you can place buttons that say something like “Share this on Facebook”. Those links can then be designed to post a message to your user’s Facebook wall that includes your company logo and a link back to your website. Then all of that user’s friends will see that post and potentially visit your site.
Access to user’s Facebook info – Your website can request access to nearly all of the info in a user’s Facebook account. Do you want to know what kinds of books and movies your users like? You can do that! Do you want to use their Facebook profile picture as your site’s profile picture? You can do that! Do you want to search their wall posts to try and figure out what they like to talk about? You can do that, too!
Facebook certainly does seem to be ruling the world right now, but you don’t have to just sit there and think “I wish I could do that”. You can choose to leverage the power that Facebook has decided to make available to all of us. I, for one, welcome our new Facebook overlords. Maybe you should too.
If you’re thinking about integrating Facebook with your website but don’t know where to start, I can help. Feel free to get in touch with me directly at clarence@creativemediapeople.com.
