Janrain: Social Network Login Trends in the Fourth Quarter of 2012

Like 87% of people, you may have had the experience of registering with a social network account or logging in with an email identity. This is the legendary social login, which was first used by Janrain to solve the challenges faced by the traditional registration process of obtaining user information online. As Internet users, we are unwilling to fill out the registration form from scratch, nor are we willing to use many different usernames and passwords on each website we often visit.

The advent of social media has allowed us to cultivate our own personas on the Internet. But social media is fragmented. We use Facebook to connect with friends and family, Twitter to follow influential people and express our opinions, LinkedIn as a private network, and Gmail, Yahoo! and Hotmail to connect with our important customers. More than 2.5 billion people have accounts on these social services. Social login eliminates the user registration barrier through social network identity authentication, allowing users to easily register and log in to other websites through social networking sites.

Who are the most popular identity verification providers?

Every quarter, we seek to answer this question by analyzing the social login preferences of online consumers across all websites using Janrain. This trend is very meaningful because social login preferences are a leading indicator of consumer trust in different online identity operators. For example, if I use my Google account to log in and participate in another website, this decision speaks to my trust in Google and my favorable impression of the services Google provides.

Our data shows that people want multiple options when it comes to social logins. Facebook has been the most popular social login operator for eight consecutive quarters. In the fourth quarter of 2012, Facebook did lose some market share to Google, with Facebook's popularity falling from 54% to 49%, while Google's social login share rose from 25% to 31%.

Despite the slight decrease in social login share in the fourth quarter, Facebook remains the most popular choice for social login for eight consecutive quarters. Twitter’s share dropped to 7% in the fourth quarter after reaching its highest level in the third quarter.

LinkedIn is designed specifically for business professionals. 80% of business professionals choose to use LinkedIn to log in to some B2B websites, and most of us will maintain our professional identity on LinkedIn.

We also noticed that different regions have different usage preferences. For example, Hyves and Facebook are the most popular social networks in the Netherlands, as evidenced by the social login preferences in the Netherlands. In Brazil and India, Orkut is the most popular social login operator, but in China, Sina Weibo and Renren are always popular, Mixi is popular in Japan, and VK is popular in Russia.

The most popular vertical social login operators

Just like our previous research and analysis, we sampled 4 industries and vertically predicted the trends of consumers’ login preferences. Although the trends are roughly the same, it is worth noting that different vertical industries have different login preferences.

Although Facebook's social login market share has decreased in Janrain, it is still the leader in the social networking field and email operators, especially in some prominent verticals, such as media, retail, entertainment, games and music-related websites. Its popularity is particularly prominent in entertainment, music, games and consumer brand websites. In the fourth quarter of 2012, Facebook did have significant gains in both retail and e-commerce, with a 5% increase in social login market share.

Google is the second most popular social login operator in all major verticals after Facebook, but it is very obvious that Google is more popular on retail websites, which further illustrates the trust users have in Google.

Mobile social login trends

Among mobile applications, Facebook and Google remain the leaders, followed by Twitter and Yahoo!.

Summarize

What do these findings mean for your business? When you want to add a "social layer" to your website to increase consumer engagement and improve conversion rates, you should integrate social login. We hope to provide you with useful insights as you optimize your online user acquisition strategy.

199it analysis and compilation: @wikyHuang Wenjie