Social Media Gets Connected

I just came across a new feature that Google is launching called "Friend Connect," and it looks really great. It connects your social media sites to almost any website. Myspace and Facebook both announced their new venture with Friend Connect last week. Myspace is only allowing certain sites this capability, but Facebook is opening the door to everyone.

With Friend Connect, you can sign your website up and put almost any type of
widget on your site. The type of widgets range from allowing a visitor to
add their own pictures and reviews, and invite their Facebook friends to
join up. Once a visitor is at your site, they log in and start using your
site's widgets. Depending on the widgets, the user can add comments or
pictures. Also, the user can invite friends from Facebook to come and check
out your page.

Friend Connect not only helps to drive new viewers to your site, but it also
works to connect social media pages. For instance, if you had a website
about flowers and Facebook had an "I Love Flowers" page, a viewer could
easily invite all of the flower lovers to start visiting your page, thus
driving search rankings.

Friend Connect also offers easy-to-use tools to keep track of page views,
who joined your page, and how many viewers and new users have checked it
out. Friend connect is a soon to be revolutionary tool to connect social
media to your site.

- Lain Ewing