In last week’s blog post, we talked about the importance of a sign-up step in the customer acquisition journey. We determined that a seamless sign-up process can be the difference between a user adopting your application or churning at the sign-up page. Building on that, we will explain the several advantages (and disadvantages) that the social login feature can have for your workflow.
You can think of the social login as a type of single sign-on functionality wherein your existing information from social media accounts, including Facebook, Twitter, and Google can be used to login into other 3rd party applications (say mag+), without the need to create a separate account for these applications. Below are some of the benefits:
Faster Registration: Social login removes the need to fill up lengthy customer forms and provides a simple login workflow for your user.
Valuable user data: Social login provides you with valuable demographic and psychological data for the user, which can be used for improved segmentation and personalization.
Retargeting: The list of customer emails may be used to launch marketing campaigns to promote additional products/services and/or nudge them into becoming paid users of the app.
Social Sharing: Information about the social media accounts for the user makes it simpler for the app to integrate social sharing functionalities. For eg., a user can post the mag+ content on his Facebook account, thereby sharing quality content with his friends to see and bringing you eyeballs from prospective users.
Easier mobile accessibility: Several users find it difficult to type login information using a smartphone’s keyboard. A social login acts as a lifesaver for such users.
Given all these advantages, it is important to talk about its few disadvantages:
Regulatory compliance: Several countries have introduced data privacy regulations to prevent unauthorized access to customer information. Although this feature has been modified in light of these regulations, it is recommended to understand your region-specific requirements before using this functionality.
3rd Dependency: If a user somehow decides to delete his social accounts, his account on your application might also get deactivated.
Not a silver bullet: Although a social login will simplify the signup login journey for your users, he might still have to enter payment/billing information manually.
Should you go ahead and enable the social login for mag+? Well, it depends. Each customer’s goals are different and it is recommended for them to do their own cost-benefit analysis before enabling this feature for their users. But for a large majority of our customers, the benefits will outweigh the costs.
For our next blog post, we will be explaining to you the steps about how you can enable this feature for your mag+ powered mobile app.
This is the second post in this series. To read the first blog of the series, click here!