A recent Silverpop article explains how social logins can help reduce form abandonment — users who don’t want to commit can simply login in with a social media account like Facebook or Twitter, to get a tasting of your content.However, most of the existing data rates social networking platforms pretty low when it comes to conversion. Search and email still work best. And it’s unclear whether sites that link to a social media platform gain access to user’s email accounts and if that’s a valid opt-in to start emailing them directly. However, as Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn and other sites battle it out, it’s possible that they will begin to sell user’s data to merchants you use their platform (so far Facebook seems to have the most advanced user stats, but their ethical use of such information is also under heavy scrutiny.)Social logins may be a good idea for sites with leaky paywalls and mixed business Models. Having non-paying users sign in will definitely give you a better sense of who your readers are and some basic demographics (location, age, etc.). Even if you can’t convert them to paying users, you can definitely tailor your ad sales to advertisers looking to target your heaviest users. And editorial can always benefit from knowing their audience more, which in turn allows you to better serve your audience and grow your subscription rates.If you’ve had a social login success or failure that you”d like to share, contact us… we always prefer real-life lessons to theory!