Recently, we analyzed the trends surrounding social logins, and gave brand marketers some food for thought for 2014. Although we gave a pretty general path for B2C and B2B brands to follow, there’s one major issue that marketers could still run into — catering to very different audiences with social logins.
This very issue was raised in a comment left on that aforementioned post. You can read the entire comment here, but here’s an excerpt:
“Our members are professionals who share candid insights about business software through in-depth, structured reviews. We elected to launch only offering LinkedIn authentication for a host of reasons, including the ability to more easily authenticate prospective reviewers and ensure that they’re not reviewing their own/competitor products, are real people etc. As our site has scaled however, I am debating whether we should offer more options for the reader (vs. the reviewer).”
Keeping the trends and recommendations we made previously in mind, here’s how to go about tailoring your logins for very different groups.
Identify the groups
What groups do you need to address? Businesses owners and consumers? Consumers from different demographics? First and foremost, make sure you identify who they are. Identifying those groups will help you determine what social networks they’re most likely to use.
Identify what you need from them
What information are you looking to gain from your site members and users? Information about their business? Information about their interests and purchase habits? The information and insights you’re hoping to gather from them will play a huge role in determining what social logins you decide to implement. You might find that, based on what you need from them, certain logins will be applicable to one group, but completely useless to another.
Identify what they’ll be using your site for
What are you looking for your site members to do? Write reviews? Submit articles? Purchase products? Identifying what each of these groups will be doing on your site can help you make some social login decisions. If you’re looking at consumers who (you’re hoping) will be sharing purchase information and ‘liking’ your products, you’d want to implement the Facebook login. If you’re, instead, looking at business owners leaving legitimate reviews for various business-related products, you’ll want to implement a LinkedIn login to help verify their identity and prevent false reviews.
Once you’ve identified these three major factors, you can return to the social login trends and projections for next year and begin to build out your plan for 2014.
Not sure why you need social logins in the first place? Learn what you can gain from the social graph here.
