What the New Facebook Login Means for Your Business

Last week at the f8 Developer Conference, Facebook announced a slew of updates to Facebook Login, all aimed to provide users more control over how their personal information is handled. As businesses are encouraged to migrate towards a more transparent, connected landscape, it’s important for marketers to understand how these login changes affect the way they interact and connect with consumers across digital channels. After all, it’s no secret that Facebook Login adoption is rising at a rapid rate: last quarter, Facebook seized over 51% of all social logins in North America.

To help you gain a firm grasp on the new Facebook Login changes, we’ll go over the changes you need to know, and explain the implications on businesses and consumers alike.

Line by Line Permissions

In the past, Facebook’s login dialog communicated all of the data points users would share with a business they authenticated with. Either they had to accept all of the requested profile permissions, or they could opt out of Facebook login altogether. With the new Facebook Login, users can exercise greater customization around this process with the option to uncheck any data fields that they don’t wish to share with the business or app in question, and still use Facebook as their login provider.

Ultimately, Facebook is putting data control back in the hands of its users by allowing them to specify exactly what information they feel comfortable sharing with businesses.

What Does This Mean for Businesses?

As the demand for more transparency around data collection grows, businesses can establish trust with their users by offering greater customization around data permissions. With the new Facebook Login controls, businesses can now get some Facebook profile information from users who may have opted out of Facebook login altogether in the past. For instance, users that initially don’t feel comfortable sharing certain data points about themselves such as email addresses, friend lists, and more, may have chosen not to register socially for a site, resulting in several missed opportunities for businesses to connect with their customers.

Even if a user opts out of sharing certain data points during the registration process, your business can still collect user data over time as you build customer relationships. To achieve this, businesses will need to prompt users to share additional information as they continue to engage with brands, either by offering incentives or clearly communicating the benefits of sharing more data.

Oprah.com, for instance, prompts users to log in socially before commenting on and sharing interesting articles.

Frictionless Registration and Login

Similar to older versions of Facebook Login, the new login dialog is designed to reduce friction, enabling users to register for a site account and login in just a few clicks. There’s no need to type in any additional information because all the needed data is contained within users’ Facebook profiles.

In furtherance offering a frictionless registration and login experience, Facebook also rolled out Anonymous Login, which allows users who want to try out an app to log in without passing along their personal information. As users interact with the app in their anonymous states, they can authenticate their Facebook data at any point in the time.

What Does This Mean for Businesses?

Anonymous Login allows users to log in to a third party site with their Facebook account without granting them access to their Facebook profile information. These users, however, can still be tracked by Facebook and served targeted ads based on their personal and behavioral data, which gives businesses opportunities to raise brand awareness and drive relevant traffic through a strategic advertising strategy.

What’s more, as Anonymous Login is rolled out, businesses can seize opportunities to convert users at even higher rates by building on the trust that’s established when you allow them to login anonymously.

Businesses considering Anonymous Login should keep in mind that it’s completely optional on the business side. Whether or not your business decides to offer Anonymous Login, you’ll still want to offer a user experience that’s completely centered around customer identity, as this encourages otherwise anonymous users to eventually authenticate their real social identities on your app.

Casino entertainment company Boyd Gaming, for example, encourages customers to authenticate with their social identities by offering a completely gamified loyalty program, B Connected Online, which recognizes and rewards socially logged in customers with hotel and casino perks for performing valuable actions like sharing promotions and events with their social networks.

“Send to Mobile” Button

Websites that have a mobile app and the new Facebook Login as a sign in option can easily connect their web and mobile channels with Facebook’s “Send to Mobile” button. This feature helps users easily install a website’s corresponding mobile app on their mobile devices: by clicking the “Send to Mobile” button, users will receive a push notification prompting them to install the app.

What Does This Mean for Businesses?

As mobile adoption grows, social login enables the passing of consumer identities across channels. The bottom line is that the “Send to Mobile” button helps connect your web and mobile presence and increase brand engagement by encouraging more app downloads.

More Power to the People

Facebook’s new login changes clearly showcase the changing of the tides towards a more customer-centric, completely permission-based data exchange that puts users first. By practicing responsible data collection methods while giving more power to users, businesses can help build the trust that they need to establish long-lasting relationships with their customers.

Read more: Employers May Not Need Your Facebook Login After All