The rapid growth in adoption of Facebook's Social Graph engine may result in brands using this functionality akin to a type of online loyalty programme, according to a recent feature by AdAge. Yet surely Facebook must resist potentially undermining consumer confidence and trust to further monetise its service through offering a direct pipeline for brand marketers, such as the online PR community?
Open Graph is better known by many as the extended 'Like' functionality that enables fans of a particular brand, product or service to join a specific Facebook page from outside Facebook.com - such as via a plug in on the brand's own website. At present, this is enabling businesses to leverage Facebook's powerful community building tools, not least by tapping into the 500m+ users on the site worldwide, rather than attempting to recreate community functionality from scratch.
However as brands continue to rush to adopt the relatively new functionality in order to swiftly build their communities, marketers are also beginning to seize the opportunity to not simply market to their community but to consider ways to leverage the extensive information that is being compiled. In other words, with a small number of policy changes and/or changes in approach by Facebook, the site could well become a major loyalty programme platform, virtually overnight given its reach.
Even at a simplistic level, through targeting a consumer's stated preferences based on their 'likes', some pioneering brands are already finding ways to tailor marketing incentives to specific demographics.
As covered by AdAge, a number of technology providers are already known to be working on the general area, with a view to offering such a service.
Moving forwards, Facebook is surely likely resist the lure of offering the full extent of data collected, not least for reasons of the affect that this might have regarding consumer attitudes to using the site. However, whatever the decisions taken, marketers will certainly look to take advantage of the opportunity that is offered by any level of user data, when coupled with the brand, product or service affinity that is demonstrated by Fan Page membership through a 'like'.
