More and more sites are giving users the option to login using a social account. Not only is this convenient for users who don’t have to go through a registration process or worry about forgetting their login credentials, it’s also a huge benefit for the sites themselves. How? It opens up the social graph to brands and gives them the opportunity to gather info on their fans and customers, and gives them hints about how to better target them. In order to take advantage of this social graph, though, you have to provide users with the social logins they’re looking for.
Janrain is great about staying up-to-date with the most popular social logins. Their most recent report, released in October, details the latest trends among consumer and B2B brands. Let’s take a look at these trends and help you pick the right social logins to add to your site next year.
B2C Brands
Unsurprisingly, Facebook still leads the way as most popular social login among users. Although it suffered a bit of a dip mid-year, it’s still by far the most popular and widely used social login for consumer brands. Thanks to Google’s integration with its products like YouTube and Google Plus, it’s experienced a jump in popularity, making it the second most popular social login. Yahoo remains in third, but its popularity is waning. Rounding out the bottom are Twitter and “other” logins.
The takeaway for consumer brands: Make sure to include Facebook, Google and Yahoo in your social login plans. Not only will these three cover the needs of most of your fans and customers, they will also be able to share great information about those users.
B2B Brands
Social network king Facebook continues to rule on the B2B side of things. Although B2B favorite LinkedIn remains in second place, Google is quickly catching up and will probably surpass it in the coming year. Although it’s still in fourth place, Twitter’s popularity is falling off, while Yahoo’s is beginning to increase.
The takeaway for B2B brands: If you previously thought Facebook wouldn’t appeal to your users, think again. Even though it’s usually considered a better choice for B2C brands because of its personal nature, it remains a login favorite among B2Bers. Take advantage of it and the data you can gather from it! Although its popularity is starting to fall, hang on to LinkedIn as an option, but, if you haven’t already, begin to incorporate Google. It will likely surpass LinkedIn in popularity next year, and you want to make sure that your site is prepared. Depending on your brand’s Twitter engagement and presence, Twitter might be an option for you, even though it’s a distant fourth.
Unsure about adding social logins to your site? Learn about what data you can collect from the social graph and how it can help your brand.
