Integrated Solutions. Measurable Results.

360i Point of View on

Facebook’s Social Plugins and Open Graph

April 2010

Overview:

Over the course of a few hoursat Facebook’s F8 developer conference, theWeb became more social. Facebook rolledout its Social Plugins and Open Graphacross dozens of sites, empowering siteowners to make any content on their sitemore personalized and sharable.

How Facebook just changed the Web

It took five years for Facebook to reach 100 million users; now it has over 400 million. In threeyears, Facebook racked up 100 million mobile users. In just over a year, it notched 100 millionFacebook Connect users. Facebook users are sharing over 25 billion pieces of content monthly.The volume of sharing and interacting with content will escalate far faster now as Facebookmakes it easier than ever to turn any kind of digital media into social media.Facebook has announced several new features:

Social Plugins

: These tools make it easy for Website owners to add social elements to anycontent, enable users to easily share content back in their Facebook activity streams, and providepersonalized recommendations to users.There are a number Social Plugins available:

•

Like Button

: Users share links to your site on their Facebook profiles

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Recommendations

: Show personalized suggestions to users based on what others like onyour site

•

: Show users their friends who already signed up for your site viaFacebook (the

Facepile

also does this, without a separate login button)

•

Comments

: Users can comment on anything on your site, with those comments appearingback on Facebook

•

Activity Feed

: Show your site’s users what their friends like and comment on

•

Like Box

: This was formerly the Fan Box, where users can like your Facebook page andview your page’s content on your Website; with some of these other options though, a fullbox isn’t necessary to grow your Facebook connections from another Website

•

Live Stream

: Allow users to share comments live and interact during an event

The Open Graph

: This provides the underpinnings of deeper relationships users can have withWebsites. When your site is connected through the Open Graph, your site is indefinitelyconnected to users’ profiles, and you can reach such users through their News Feed streams.Updates to Facebook Insights allow site owners to access analytics on such connections throughFacebook Insights, which has been upgraded. This vastly expands on Facebook Connect, which isnow being phased out.

Integrated Solutions. Measurable Results.

360i Point of View on

Facebook’s Social Plugins and Open Graph

April 2010

How sites are currently using Facebook’s enhancements

Over 75 sites were included in Facebook’s launch, incorporating Social Plugins and Open Graphconnections.Examples include:

•

Docs.com

: This new site from Microsoft allows users to collaborate on documents withtheir Facebook friends while using Facebook to comment on any other public document.

•

Sephora

: Product pages include a Like button, and visitors can see if their friends areamong those who liked a product.

•

Pandora

: This music streaming and recommendation site includes recent ‘stations’ yourFacebook friends created and listened to, and it will tell you if your friends are interested inmusic you’re playing.

The bottom half of the screen shows how Pandora uses Facebook’s Open Graphto include music recommendations from friends on Facebook

Integrated Solutions. Measurable Results.

360i Point of View on

Facebook’s Social Plugins and Open Graph

April 2010

Which marketers should consider it

Any marketer should consider using Facebook’s Social Plugins and Open Graph to increaseengagement on their sites, drive traffic, encourage consumer advocacy of their content andproducts, and potentially improve conversions due to increased personalization.

•

Retailers can allow any user to like their products and comment on them, and then deliverpersonalized recommendations. User endorsements on products can feed the Facebookfeed and potentially become an increasingly bigger traffic driver back to the Website.

•

Entertainment marketers can encourage advocacy of a range of content such as TV shows,movies, actors, characters, episodes, video outtakes, and blog posts.

•

Consumer packaged goods brands can encourage conversations around their products andbuild up their fan base.

•

Travel marketers can personalize recommendations for consumers based on specificproperties, destinations, or itineraries consumers like.

Impact on privacy

Facebook will need to address some brewing user concerns about privacy, which regularly ariseas a concern from its members, though Facebook offers very granular privacy controls. Users’ public information – names, profile pictures, friend lists, and other fields – will be accessible tosite owners using the Open Graph, but users will need to explicitly opt in to disclose private datasuch as email addresses. It may surprise some consumers what information, and how much of it,is publicly available.New controls from Facebook, or more clarity around the existing controls, may be needed tobolster users’ trust. For marketers, following Facebook’s existing guidelines will prevent anyoutright privacy breach, but marketers may need to educate consumers more too.

What’s next

As of now, there’s no word that Facebook will use Social Plugins for ad targeting, although itwouldn’t be entirely surprising to see an ad network emerge given all of the data the network isamassing. Regardless of Facebook’s next move, the increased socialization of online content willprovide more momentum for social graph ad targeting in general, where campaigns reachconsumers based on who they’re connected to and the behaviors of their connections.