Podcast: Understand Facebook Connect for Business

Zuck and FB connect

Invest 20 minutes to listen to this podcast focused on how Facebook Connect helps brands connect with existing communities.  This podcast, hosted by Aaron Strout of Powered, was joined by the digital editor of AdWeek, Brian Morrissey and marketing blogger/consultant, Susan Getgood, and myself.

You can also download the Mp3 file directly.  Get more details about the podcast from Aaron’s blog directly.  A few themes:  Social marketing is about getting your customers to talk to customers –not just a brand blasting to customers.

Update: Here’s the example I mentioned about VW using FB to serve up contextual content, to learn more about this trend, read “The Future of the Social Web” which was Forrester’s top report in Q2 2009 and the blog post has been translated to 20 languages.

48 Replies to “Podcast: Understand Facebook Connect for Business”

  2. Wouldn’t using something like Disqus be more useful than Facebook Connect? Facebook is, for me, a black hole. It’s a friends and family thing. Disqus seems to allow for broader reach.

  3. By the way, you can login to my comments here with Facebook connect: It asks you to confirm your Facebook profile, and it auto displays your profile pic and links to your FB profile.

    If you’re a blogger and want people to click back to your blog, leaving a comment with FB isn’t for you, or you should also leave a link to your blog in the comment.

  4. Tyler

    Good question, Facebook Connect can be used in many ways other than just blog comments. For example:

    1) If you want to increase activity on your site and don’t want to force people to register, then use FB connect and in theory, you’ll have a greater activity set.

    2) Getting content to spread to Facebook news feed. Websites where users have used FB connect can ask their users to spread content to their newsfeed on FB. For Example, NYT encourages it’s users to spread content to their FB profiles –and then their friends

    3) Social Context. Campaigns like VW ask users if they can register with their Facebook connect, and then serve up contextual content: see example.

    http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2009/06/18/contextual-ads-based-off-social-network-profile-twitter-and-facebook/

    As far as I know, Discus is more of a commenting engine, and can’t do the things I mentioned (but I could be wrong)

  6. But what if I’m not trying to sell anything? I’m a consultant and I’m not my brand.

    I suppose I have a romanticized view of what Facebook was originally.

  7. Interesting podcast, I will look into facebook connect, but I have found that facebook fan pages are very difficult to manage and many of the apps don’t work properly with the fan pages, for example simple apps like twitter feed, or an rss feed from my blog will not work.

    I have even tried to open a separate fan page for my business, separated from my personal page, and it was a nightmare. Honestly, I gave up. I now only use facebook for all my personal friends and this page works seamless.

    I would like to get a bite from 200 millions uniques, but I find it very difficult for fan pages to work properly and I don’t want to mix my personal with my business pages.

    I will try again and look into Facebook Connect after your podcast and article. I believe in your words of wisdom, but my business experience with Facebook has not been smooth.

    PS: Majority of my traffic comes from Google Search and Twitter.

    Thanks in Advance…pete

  8. Tyler

    Oh. Heh, well this blog is focused on brands using web technologies to connect with customers. Fortunately, people that don’t want to deal with brands can just not subscribe to brands (or follow or fan), however you’ll still be dealing with ads –as that’s how free services like Facebook and MySpace generate money and not charge users for their costs.

    To be clear, my purpose is to teach brands how to do it RIGHT, by opt in marketing, not invasive marketing that forces customers to opt out. Customers are in charge, and I’m focused on doing it so all parties can win.

  9. Pete

    Using Facebook Connect doesn’t require you to integrate the fan page as part of the strategy. We all know the difficulties of fan pages, in fact Tim Kendall from FB discussed this on stage at SES, he specifically said that “Fan pages aren’t as elegant as actual web pages”

    Your corporate website shouldn’t go away –but should connect with social networks –they work together.

  10. Our web agency integrated Facebook Connect (specifically, the Comments widget) into a couple clients’ sites, but had to remove the code due to performance issues. The load time is very slow, causing higher page abandonment rates and also affecting analytics (scripts not completely loading).

    Other Commenting widget providers, such as Disqus, that have already integrated Facebook Connect on the back-end, are a much more stable solution.

    Thanks for sharing this podcast,

    Rick

    Disqus & Facebook Connect: http://blog.disqus.net/2008/12/23/facebook-connect-now-available-on-disqus/

    Facebook Comments: http://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&story=198

  11. Pingback: Podcast: Facebook Connect for Your Business | CyberhomesBlog.com

  12. Facebook connect and its peers, are really a exciting stuff. We are working on a few projects now where facebook connect is used. In addition to what Jeremiah mentions here you can also see if anyone els in your facebook network also is a member of the site you have connected to using facebook connect.

    Personally I thing that the convenience for the user when signing up and off course the ability to pinpoint the content of the site for that user is a huge benefit. In addition the hole idea of social context gives you the opportunity to rally making your site or service so much more relevant for your users. For those of you who have not read Jeremiahs article The Future of the Social Web” should do so.

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  14. Hi Jeremiah,

    Thanks for the valuable insights on Social Connect tools. I recommended Facebook connect to one of my client for increasing the conversations after reading your blog post.

    Thanks,
    Nallai

  15. Pingback: Podcast: Understand Facebook Connect for Business « Web Strategy … | Google Friend Connect Blog

  16. I agree with the approach as offered from your “Future of the Social Web” POV. The ability to close the loop on FB Pages and engagement with social communities off FB is a great opportunity for those that have encountered community or creative limitations within FB. FB is not the other internet but is the social hub to engage with and FB Connect is a great method to consider.

  20. The two points that I found the most interesting were the 30% in site registrations and the amount of traffic that Twitter is referring to Ad Week and Forrester. We are building a branded social networking site on wine and food have have been contemplating the FB connect for login. This stat will seal the deal. Great podcast thanks a lot for the post.

    @jaypiddy on Twitter.

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  26. This is my first comment but I feel like I should have been making loads of comments now because I always like your stuff.

    Maybe comments are for more hit and miss blogs than your own. When you maintain a consistent level of high quality output

    I reckon people are less inclined to comment because they have come to expect it from you. Just a theory.

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  29. Hi there! I really enjoyed reading your article it is very interesting and very helpful I think for many people.keep up the good work

  36. Pingback: Podcast: Facebook Connect för varumärken | Word-of-mouth Newsletter

  38. Great post. I have been searching for this exact info for a while now. I will bookmark it in the public bookmarking sites to get you more traffic.
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  43. It’s neat to see that facebook hits so many million people at once.. The advertising on it is insane! My friend paid $150 bucks for 10 mins of advertising for his store. That’s pretty amazing– but look at how many people saw his ad!

    -Sylvia

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