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Get Better User Engagement by Integrating Social Logins on Your Website

Posted: 25 Apr 2012 02:00 PM PDT

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Would you like more people to create a user account on your website? Anyone with a website that encourages website traffic to create an account always wants more subscribers. The challenge is two-fold. Most people don’t like giving up personal data to websites unless they are comfortable with them or really need what the site is offering. Reason number two, the registration process is usually time-consuming. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a solution to both of these issues? You’d think that if you can solve the two biggest hurdles to people creating an account on your website that you’d be able to increase your conversion rate of website traffic to website subscribers. The solution is out there… It’s called Social Login, and in this article we are going to dig into what it is, how you can use it on your website, the benefits of doing so, and provide a few examples of sites who are using Social Login successfully.

What is Social Login?

Social Login options

Social Login is the process of letting users create accounts on your site by logging into their social media accounts. Using API calls back-end software will connect to the user’s social media account and pull in all relevant data required for your sites Registration Process. If any additional data is required by your site, but was not collected from the user’s social media account, you can display those fields, ask users to complete the form, and click a Register/Submit button. Basically this allows users to bypass a normal website registration process, simply login to their social media account, and click Register (unless extra data is required). Social Login is much less time-consuming than normal website registration process.

Integrating Social Login into Your Website

Different websites allow users to use different social media accounts to register. The key to selecting the right social media tools to use on your website starts with analyzing your target audience. What social media channels do you think most of your website traffic uses? Either that, or just go with the two biggest social media channels, Twitter and Facebook!

In order to integrate Social Login into your website you must find Social Login software to use. Here are a few that you can choose from:

Social Login for WordPress
Facebook Connect – Only allows users to register and login with Facebook
Janrain
Gigya- Recommended for larger sites with bigger dollar budgets

Social Login Janrain

Websites Should Provide Both Social Login and Standard Registration Options

Social Login is a great tool for increasing the number of subscribers to your website. That said, in most cases, it shouldn’t be the only registration option. Some people don’t want to merge their social profiles with other websites. You want to give potential users the option of logging in without social media. Some people either don’t have social media accounts on the sites that you provide as Social Login options or they don’t want to see things that they do on your website show up on their Social Media accounts. Although there are a lot of benefits of adding a Social Login option to your website, it should be an added option, not the only option.

Benefits of Using Social Login on Your Website

Adding Social Login to your website can be an extremely beneficial use of your time and/or money. Here are a few of the numerous benefits that Social Login offers website owners:

Add More Subscribers – Websites that have added Social Login as an option for their account registration process have increased the number of subscribers from 10% to hundreds of percent.
Easier Registration Process – Social Login is usually MUCH easier for users than a normal website account registration process
Go Viral – When users are logged in to their social media accounts from your website it’s much easier to post information from your website to their entire network. Most Social Login software already has this feature built-in. This means that for every user who creates an account on your website through Social Login, the potential for you to capture their friends as users increases dramatically over a standard registration process.

Is Social Login Safe to Use?

Is Social Login Safe?

Image Credit

The simple answer is YES. The long answer is slightly more complicated. Social Login is typically very safe with regards to your personal data getting into the wrong hands. That said, using Social Login to sign-up for a website simply opens a user up to yet another API call that’s transferring personal data between his social network and your website. There’s always a little risk that something will happen that will either cause the API call to break and data to be leaked or for someone tapping into it and stealing data. All of this being said, there’s also safety concerns for any type of registration process whereby consumers provide their personal data to a company/website. Social Login is typically extremely safe, but it does open consumers up to just another avenue for their personal data to fall into the wrong hands. In my opinion the risk is pretty low.

Examples of Websites Using Social Login

There are hundreds of thousands to millions of websites around the web that use Social Login. Here are a few examples of websites who successfully use Social Login:

Pinterest, in the news recently as they were purchased by Facebook, currently allows users to login with either their Facebook or Twitter account. It will be interesting to see if they switch that to Facebook-only moving forward.

Social Login Pinterest

HubSpot

HubSpot, an online marketing software company with a very large user base, allows users to login to Hubspot with their Google Account.

Social Login HubSpot

iVillage.com

iVillage.com provides the most flexible of all of the sites that we are going to review in this article. They offer a standard registration process whereby they collect Email, Username, and Password. iVillage.com also lets users register and login via Social Login. Users can choose from a variety of social networks to connect to their iVillage.com account, from Facebook and Twitter to Yahoo! and AOL.

Social Login iVillage.com

ESPN.com

ESPN.com provides users with both a standard registration process and Social Login registration process in order to create an account on ESPN.com. ESPN have decided that most of their website traffic is on Facebook, thus they have gone with the Facebook Connect Social Login option.

Social Login ESPN.com

Adding Social Login to Your Website

Will you add Social Login to your website? Depending on your needs, integrating Social Login into your website will either be pretty quick and easy (think WordPress plugin), or a little more time-consuming and/or expensive. That said, no matter how the integration process plays out for you, one thing is pretty clear, your users will appreciate it and more people will sign-up for an account on your website. Let us know if you are currently using Social Login and what you think about it by leaving a comment below. If you aren’t currently using Social Login, do you think you’ll look into integrating it into your website?

50 Fresh and Creative Business Card Designs: 2012 Edition

Posted: 25 Apr 2012 06:00 AM PDT

Are you looking for some inspiration to design a beautiful business card then you are at the right place. Here we are showcasing some creative business card designs for your inspiration. Although there are loads of business card samples uploaded on the net, it is quite difficult to find the creative ones that appeal to you. Business cards are necessary no matter what business you are in. Business cards let you promote yourself in your professional circle. In this round up, you will discover some fresh and innovative ideas for business card designs. We hope that these designs will help you in establishing a professional image. Check this out and pick one! Do let us know what you feel about this round up.