360i Report on Facebook’s Social Plugins and Open Graph

Over the course of a few hours at Facebook’s F8 developer conference, the Web became more social. Facebook rolled out its Social Logins and Open Graph across dozens of sites, empowering site owners to make any content on their site more personalized and sharable.

Key Takeaways

Facebook has changed the Web: Facebook, now 400 million users strong, has announced several new features that will change the way users interact with and share content online. Social Plugins – such as a Like Button, Recommendations and others – make it easier for site owners to add social components to any site and empower visitors to share content via their Facebook activity streams. The Open Graph connects websites with Facebook users’ profiles, and allows publisher to reach such users through their News Feed streams.

Who’s on board so far: More than 75 sites were included in the launch as partners in Facebook’s new Social Plugins and Open Graph initiatives, including Microsoft’s new Doc.scom, Sephora and Pandora.

Which marketers should consider it: Any marketer should consider using Facebook’s Social Plugins and Open Graph to increase engagement on their sites, drive traffic, encourage consumer advocacy of their content and products, and potentially improve conversions due to increased personalization.

How this could look: Retailers could allow any user to Like their products or comment on them – and then deliver endorsements to their Facebook feed. Entertainment marketers could encourage advocacy of a range of content (movies, actors, episodes, etc.) and CPG brands could encourage conversations about specific products. Moreover, travel marketers can now personalize recommendations for consumers based on specific criteria (properties, destinations, itineraries, etc.).

If there were any doubts before, the Web is shifting to a completely social phenomenon. Anywhere consumers go online, whether they’re shopping, planning a trip, or reading news, is becoming a social experience. Social personalization is now possible in ways that could never scale so easily before.

Marketers and site owners should embrace these opportunities and envision how this will impact their relationships with consumers in the years ahead.

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