Facebook Integration Fuels Growth for Genealogy Research/Social Networking Membership Site

Discover how FamilyLink.com piggybacked on Facebook’s popularity to create a social networking site for families that includes a premium genealogy research database. Insider spoke

Quick Overview

Founded 2006, FamilyLink.com rode a wave of viral growth from a Facebook app that let users tag and connect with their relatives. Now, the site attracts more than 60 million users with a two-tiered platform: Free social networking with living relatives, or a subscription-based historic records database to search for information about your ancestors. Discover how the team uses member-generated free content (social-networking updates) to drive leads for their subscription-based genealogy research database.

Target Market

Anyone interested in genealogy, family history and connecting with lost relatives, but subscribers tend to be older women: 64% of members are female, and 49% of users are over the age of 35.

Content Model

 The site offers users a two-tiered content experience: A free social networking platform that connects to Facebook, and a premium genealogy research database that has millions of historical records covering 3.6 billion names.

The genealogy research database originally was operated as a separate premium website called WorldVitalRecords.com. But the team has consolidated that site into the FamilyLink.com domain, giving previous WorldVitalRecords.com subscribers’ FamilyLink accounts.

The premium content database features digitized copies of rare documents, such as church ledgers, birth and death records, out-of-print genealogy books, immigration records, and historic Census data. It also holds 1 billion scanned newspaper articles, 25 million yearbook photos, and 40 million tombstone photos.

Allen and his team primarily license this content from existing database owners, paying ongoing royalties rather than one-time fees.

“We are generous with royalties to partners,” he says. “We like to work with people who are doing ongoing indexing and digitizing and need a revenue stream, not one big check.”

Content negotiations are extensive, says Allen. The team conducts constant research to discover new data sources. Then, Allen visits these information providers to discuss partnership deals (he’s traveled to more than 14 countries this year).

“When people have spent 20-30 years collecting that content, they feel so emotionally attached to it,” he says. “It’s not something where one phone call does it. It takes multiple face-to-face visits.”

On the other hand, content on the free social networking platform is generated by users themselves — who upload their own documents and photos, create family trees, post family news updates, and the like. The system works by integrating with users’ Facebook accounts to create a special network of relatives who can share information and updates and invite other family members to join their family group.

In addition, they created a Facebook app in 2007 called “We’re Related” that let Facebook users tag their relatives on the social network.

Revenue Streams

Premium memberships account for about 80% of total revenue, and have grown 100% year-over-year.

The site currently offers two premium tiers:

  • Annual memberships for $59.40
  • Two-year memberships for $94.80

The subscription offer page highlights the monthly cost of those two options — $4.95 a month for annual subscriptions or $3.95 a month for two-year subscriptions — but clearly indicates that the member will be billed for the entire year up front.

A price test earlier this year they found that a $2.95 monthly price actually converted more members than a $1.95 monthly price. Conversions declined when they increased the monthly rate to $3.95, but the additional revenue from that higher price point made up for the lower conversion rate. They plan to conduct additional price testing next year.

Advertising accounts for about 20% of total revenue, but it used to be a much bigger piece of the pie. Earlier this year, Facebook changed the rules surrounding third-party ads on Facebook profiles and applications, reducing the amount of space against which FamilyLink.com could serve ads.

Marketing Tactics

Viral/social referrals

Facebook is the team’s top marketing channel, driving viral growth of the FamilyLink platform through exposure to existing members’ extended contacts. The team’s “We’re Related” app was an enormous success, attracting 80 million users in its first few years to become one of Facebook’s top 10 applications. For a time, all of those users could receive email updates within Facebook from FamilyLink, when a family member in their network updated their profiles (More on those email alerts below).

Then in early 2010, Facebook changed the rules around applications, requiring app creators to communicate only with users who had also provided a valid email address. That change disconnected FamilyLink from 65 million of its app users.

Today, though, they still have email addresses for 15 million app users who drive traffic to FamilyLink by inviting family members to join their networks. Monthly unique visitors average 3.3 million, according to Compete.com.

Email updates

The team uses content-related email messages to communicate with free FamilyLink users. Users receive email updates whenever a member of their family makes changes to their profile, such as adding new family members or adding photos. Those messages generate leads for the subscription content by including links to search for family history records in the FamilyLink database — a premium membership feature.

“We are not into sending out offers all the time. We really want families to see what’s new with their families on Facebook.”

Because those emails contain information that’s relevant to subscribers — not just promotional offers — open and clickthrough rates “are huge,” says Allen.

Free search tool and trial membership

The FamilyLink homepage features a large search box that lets visitors enter a family-member’s name and search for records in the site’s database.

The search engine returns a list of available documents and images related to that family member, but requires users to sign up for a free, three-day trial membership to view documents, photos, newspaper scans and other types of content. That way, non-members get a glimpse of what’s available to them for a family history project, but must accept a trial membership to access the information.

Technology & Vendors Used

Google Analytics: Web analytics platform
http://www.google.com/analytics/

Lyris: Email service provider
http://www.lyris.com

About Paul Allen

Allen is a subscription content pioneer who co-founded Ancestry.com in 1997. He then created MyFamily.com, a family social networking site, in 1998. He calls FamilyLink.com “The perfect fusion of Ancestry.com and MyFamily.com” — a social networking site with a premium content component.

He started out as a CD-ROM publisher in the early 1990s, but quickly saw the power of the Internet for organizing and disseminating vast quantities of content. “The amount of content that’s been digitized is mind-boggling.”

Subscription Site Insider’s Analysis

FamilyLink does an impressive job providing an engaging, free service that has a clear funnel to a premium membership. Piggybacking on Facebook as a way for families to stay connected, and then offering tools for researching their ancestors, generates interest in genealogy among people who may not have considered that service previously. And the team is smart to include subscription promotions in members’ family update emails, because people are clearly more engaged when the email is relevant to their needs.

Unfortunately, it seems like changes to Facebook’s application rules make it hard for other publishers to have similar success growing their businesses with that approach. The FamilyLink team is branching out with new marketing channels (SEO and affiliates, among others). And as more visitors start arriving from channels beyond Facebook, the site could do a better job clearly explaining how FamilyLink.com integrates with members’ existing Facebook profiles, and how the private family networks are different from a plain-old Facebook account. We also think the additional price and offer testing they’re hoping to conduct next year could generate more paying members.

http://www.familylink.com

Up Next

Register Now For Email Subscription News Updates!

Search this site

You May Be Interested in:

Log In

Join Subscription Insider!

Get unlimited access to info, strategy, how-to content, trends, training webinars, and 10 years of archives on growing a profitable subscription business. We cover the unique aspects of running a subscription business including compliance, payments, marketing, retention, market strategy and even choosing the right tech.

Already a Subscription Insider member? 

Access these premium-exclusive features

Monthly
(Normally $57)

Perfect To Try A Membership!
$ 35
  •  

Annually
(Normally $395)

$16.25 Per Month, Paid Annually
$ 195
  •  
POPULAR

Team
(10 Members)

Normally Five Members
$ 997
  •  

Interested in a team license? For up to 5 team members, order here.
Need more seats? Please contact us here.