If you are not 100% sure what Social Sign-in is? It is using your social media profiles as a tool to login somewhere or create an account or for us at Virally we use it for gaining access to content.
To pros to using this as a user is quite straight forward, it saves you filling our forms and setting up new accounts with new passwords to remember. Social Sign-in takes the information you have already given the social network and made publicly available to create an account or download content.
Friction as defined by Ronald Coase as follow: Friction = The time, money and effort lost in getting what you want.
With Social Sign-in there is less friction in most cases and therefore means more action. People already have a social account in general and they know there password if not already logged in on their browser and therefore in few quick clicks they get want they want.
This works really well with those that are time sensitive and also trust the social networks they use and therefore are comfortable using social sign-in.
The Cons of Social Sign-In.
These are quite obvious really, those that do not trust social networks and are concerned what personal data there are giving up. If that is a concern then using social media as a whole is probably a bigger concern and if not it should be. I think this is one area that the social networks should do more to make their users aware of what data they are making available.
The Answer?
Most applications that use Social Sign-in technology offer both as in a manual form to complete as well and this offers users both options and enables people to progress if they wish.
Its worth understanding that the more fields you present the less likely people are going to complete them and also they way the formate all makes a difference. The less fields you require the more likely they are to complete them. (Another blog I think)
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