November is a terrific time to spotlight the brands and individuals who have sponsored SMCLA events and have supported us in a variety of ways - near and far. Today, meet our sponsor, Janrain, a user management solution for social login, social sharing, single sign-on, and social profile storage. If your business asks customers for a "log-in," chances are you're going to be interested in reading more. If you're an individual asking yourself "Why don't more companies combine my Facebook log-in with my customer account so I don't have to remember so many passwords and usernames?" this is also something to think about.  Our friend Orion Addis, strategic account executive for Janrain, guest posts for us - learn more about social log-ins and Janrain!

It’s time you considered social login by Orion Addis, Janrain

At a high level, as digital strategists or online marketing professionals, we all have pretty similar goals: we want to drive traffic to our site, know who’s visiting, and encourage the actions that lead to sales.Pretty straightforward, right?The challenge is that at many steps in this journey we ask website visitors to do something for us: fill out a form with their personal information and trust that we won’t sell or misuse it.To illustrate, ask yourself (be honest):

• Have you ever left a site when asked to register or create an account?
• Have you ever left a site when you couldn’t remember your username or password?
• Have you ever left a site with items in your shopping cart?
• Have you ever entered in false information when creating a new account?
• How many unique username/password combinations do you have?

You know where this is headed – consumers have reached a point of password fatigue.  It’s simply not possible to create yet another unique username and password combination for every site requiring registration.  So coping mechanisms are employed, which just make our jobs harder.

• People jump ship. They simply leave your site (86% admit to doing so in the past according to third-party research).
• They leave products in their shopping cart (11% of shoppers do, according to Forrester).
• They lie and enter false information in registration forms (88% reported doing this)
• They re-use the same username and password combination (the average consumer has 7.9 unique combinations), which puts you and their data at risk.

Social login addresses these issuesThankfully, as a result of the rise in popularity of social networks, there is an easy way to address these issues. Research reveals that 77% of consumers would prefer to have social login as an option to register.  By allowing site visitors to sign in using an existing identity from Facebook, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn and more, you can immediately increase your conversion rates by as much as 50%.By making it easier for someone to sign into your site, you remove those obstacles that get in the way from the actions that lead to sales or engagement. Expedited registration means a streamlined checkout process for commerce site, or ease of commenting and sharing of content on media or entertainment sites.With social login, you’re also building a healthy database with authentic profile data going beyond typical demographics. Think about the data held in a Facebook profile: interests, activities and friends. When people choose social login, they grant you permission to access this data that’s likely to be more current and accurate than anything they’d leave in a form.With all of this data, you can build what every marketer dreams of: a full 360-degree view of your audience. This enhanced knowledge can be applied to your marketing programs to improve email campaigns, audience segmentation, messaging and much more. With access to this rich data, the significant impact of personalization you read about in case studies is possible.Isn’t it time you considered social login? Many thanks to our friends at Janrain! SMCLA panels and events are kept affordable for everyone because of generous sponsors like Janrain and active SMC members like you. If you'd like to learn more about Janrain and social logins, chat them here:

• Company: janrain.com
• Facebook page: fb.com/janrain
• Twitter handle: twitter.com/janrain
• YouTube: youtube.com/user/janrainvideos
• LinkedIn: linked.com/company/janrain-inc

Looking to speak to Orion?  Tweet him directly at twitter.com/orionaddis. (Thanks, Orion!)