Facebook’s Open Graph seeks to connect different corners of the web in an attempt to make it, in the words of CEO and Co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, “smarter, more social, more personalized, and more semantically aware.” The initiative, which was announced at the Facebook Developer conference F8 in April, is slowly changing the way users experience popular sites, from Yelp to Netflix. For brands, the Open Graph offers endless possibilities for reaching their consumers on numerous platforms. The technicalities of Open Graph are not necessarily easily understood, but reaping the benefits of this new technology is a no-brainer.

1. Strength in Numbers
As more and more online heavyweights incorporate Facebook’s Open Graph API into their sites, Facebook’s reach broadens. The Graph’s success and widespread implementation is yet another indication of Facebook’s growing market share. The more traffic other sites drive to Facebook, the more important it becomes for brands to have an active, well-maintained Facebook page. Social marketing is all about harnessing cutting-edge technology to the advantage of both the brand and the customer. Competition is steep: as more and more brands adopt social marketing strategies, companies hoping to stay at the forefront of the industry know that integrating the Open Graph into their online efforts is crucial.

2. Streamlining Made Easy
On the user side, the Open Graph is an easy way to seamlessly integrate all of your online and social presences. For brands, this makes it easier to close the marketing gap between social networks and their websites. Restaurants on Yelp, for example, can have their reviews published in the Facebook news feed. The more connected your social presences are, the easier it is for users to navigate between them.

3. Personalization = Monetization
Open Graph allows brands to harness information from Facebook  and use it to personalize a user’s experience on their website. Apparel retailer Urban Outfitters recently made the “Like” button central to their online shopping experience, offering users the chance to view products based on how many “Likes” they’ve received. Online footwear club Shoedazzle, for example, has added a Facebook “Like” button next to each of their products, allowing users to “Like” indivudual and specific lines. As Shoedazzles learns what the user likes, it will only send the user ads or emails that have shoes like the shoe they “Liked.” Knowing exactly what the user wants empowers brands to market accordingly. The more things the user likes, the more data the site has to pull from–therefore, Open Graph grows smarter and more accurate the more it is used.

4. What We Talk About When We Talk About Privacy
The downside of the highly publicized Open Graph is that it is often the specter behind highly debated concerns surrounding Facebook and privacy. Of course, users can choose to opt-out of using the Open Graph, rendering it far less of an anti-privacy monster than the press often makes it out to be. But understanding and recognizing customer concerns as they apply to social is integral to building a trusted brand-customer relationship.

5. Free Press is Good Press
The Open Graph’s most obvious incarnation is the “Like” button, which brands can choose to embed within their websites. This gives the users the option to “Like” the page without even navigating away from it. These actions are then published onto the user’s news feed, which essentially provides brands with free publicity. The more users “Like” your brand, the more visible it becomes on their news feed, and the more likely it is that their friends will choose to “Like” it as well. This dramatically increases brand awareness and creates opportunities for the creation of brand advocates — if someone really likes a product, and they share it, then their friends may see it, like it, and share it, and the brand gains an increasing amount of visibility.

Taking advantage of the Open Graph is key for brands hoping to integrate social marketing into their online presence. And with Facebook’s growth rate, it seems social is only getting bigger and better.

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