Social logins become standard

Warc, 26 September 2014

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA: US consumers are increasingly opting to use their social network accounts to log into websites and apps, finding this route offers the greatest convenience, according to a new survey.

Gigya, a digital consumer management firm and provider of social sign-in plugins, surveyed 2,000 US adults aged 18 to 55 and found that 77% had used social logins, a significant increase on a previous survey in 2012, when just 53% had done so.

Not only were more people using social logins, they were using the logins more often, reported Marketing Land. Just over one third (34%) said they 'always' used a social login, almost three times as many as did two years ago (12%). And 32% said they 'often' used them, up from 23% in 2012.

Those using them 'sometimes' dropped from 36% to 33% and a mere 1% said they never used them, a huge fall from the 29% who had never used them two years previously.

At the heart of this change in attitude was a simple desire to make life easier. Of those using social logins, 53% said they didn't want to spend time filling out registration forms; and 47% didn't want the hassle of creating or remembering another user name and/or password.

"It's clear that consumers today have reached a threshold where convenience is king," said Patrick Saley, Gigya CEO. "Our study shows that social login use is becoming essentially ubiquitous and is becoming a standard for consumers when interacting with brands on web and mobile."

Convenience also over-rode any concerns about privacy even though there was a widespread expectation among respondents that their data would be used in ways they had never intended.

Almost half (47%) believed sites would sell their data, and around four in ten thought they would post on their wall without permission (42%) and spam their friends on social networks (41%). Those worries were, in fact, a major reason not to use a social login on some sites.

Saley noted that consumers were willing to share information if they knew what it was used for and how it would benefit them. But the level of disquiet among consumers was evident in the survey finding that 86% wanted data collection companies to be more heavily regulated by government institutions.

Data sourced from Marketing Land; additional content by Warc staff