• by Aaron Strout , July 28, 2009

It’s hard to ignore Facebook these days. With its member base eclipsing the 200 million mark earlier this year, it’s understandable why mainstream media -- and now marketers -- are starting to pay attention. Even more tantalizing to marketers is the fact that the fastest growing demographic within the Facebook membership base is people 35 years old and older.

Here’s where things get a little trickier for marketers, however. Not many companies have figured out how to make money from Facebook. Yes, there are the Coca Cola fan pages with north of three million members, and certainly Victoria Secret’s “Pink” fan page has drawn a lot of attention, but really where is the ROI? Social advertising also seems to be missing its mark as many of the ads in Facebook go largely unnoticed.

That’s where Facebook Connect comes in. For anyone unfamiliar with this, Connect is Facebook’s version of “Open ID” or the ability to authenticate on third party sites using Facebook credentials. To be clear, Facebook Connect has been around for nearly a year but to date, nobody has made a big deal out of it.

Where the story starts to get good is when you start to think about the power of Facebook Connect for Web sites and online communities that are rich in useful content like CNN.com. Rather than just reading/commenting on an article, I can now let my friends on Facebook see that I commented on the article because Facebook Connect allows that event to flow into my news feed -- with my consent of course. Then, if some of my friends decide to click on that link and perhaps comment -- voila! That goes in their news feeds as well.

This phenomenon can really gain momentum when you think about a large consumer brand that has created an online community rich in lifestyle-centric content. Think of a discount retailer that provides short tutorials on topics like “decorating on a dime” or “accessorizing with flare” that members could rate, review and discuss. And imagine that all of those conversations take place as members are logged into the discount retailer’s site via Facebook Connect. All of the participating members’ activity “could” be flowing into their respective news streams.

What is really powerful about the above scenario is that with 200 million plus members, the viral effect can be fast and powerful. If the average person on Facebook has 120 friends, it doesn’t take long before even a percentage of those people clicking on a link in someone’s news feed reaches thousands of other folks. These are all folks that are potential customers. And better yet, those clicking are passively endorsing the company -- thus making it ripe for referrals -- by allowing the brand content to flow through their Facebook pages.

Although Facebook Connect still has a long way to go in terms of mainstream adoption, it’s encouraging to see sites like online video provider Joost report that since implementing Facebook Connect in December, the average Facebook user has watched 30% more videos and has entered 15% more comments. When it does hit mainstream, assuming it’s done in conjunction with great content, the results are going to be amazing.