In September 2013, I published an article here on the Corporate Eye blog discussing a study Gigya had conducted about social identities and social logins during the third quarter of 2013. At the time, Facebook dominated social logins (52%) with Google+ coming in a distant second (24%).
Fast forward through the fourth quarter of 2014, and little had changed. Gigya found that Facebook still reigned supreme with 51% of consumers using it for social logins versus just 28% using Google+.
The infographic below provides more details about how social login preferences are playing out among consumers according to Gigya’s study. It’s also interesting to note that 63% of mobile logins during the fourth quarter of 2014 came from Facebook versus 25% for Google+. For both desktop and mobile social logins, Google gained a bit of traction in the social login space. However, aside from media/publisher sites where Facebook and Google+ were slightly closer in social login share, Facebook social logins were nearly double Google+ social logins in all industries tracked as part of the Gigya study.
Also, take note of Facebook’s social login dominance around the world. As shown in the infographic, Facebook dominates social logins in North America, Europe, Central America, South America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. In other words, Google+ and other social networks have a lot of work to do to catch up.
The value of social logins for brands is in the data. When a consumer uses a social login to log into a brand’s site, it can open the doors to a significant amount of information and data about that consumer. This data could potentially be used to deliver targeted offers. Gaining access to consumers’ email addresses, locations, marital status, education, interests, social network connections, preferences, and more is extremely valuable to brand marketers.
It’s not difficult to add social logins to a brand website, and the benefits can be significant. However, as I mentioned in my article in September 2013, it’s important to consider consumer online and social behavior before you implement a social login process on your brand website. For example, social logins from Google+ might be growing, but sharing on Google+ is still much less than it is on Facebook. In fact, Google+ sharing is still less than Twitter and Pinterest, too.
It’s also essential to have a team in place to analyze the data you gain access to so the brand marketing group can turn it into actionable marketing programs that drive positive results for the company. Implementing social logins without the skills and talent on board to turn data into effective action is akin to putting the cart before the horse—the results will be extremely disappointing.
Image: Musuvathi J Ubendran
Lucy is Editor at Corporate Eye
