SuperSwitcher, a UK price comparison site for helping
consumers switch energy suppliers and tariffs, is using a
custom-made Facebook applet and social networking to boost
referrals.
Many business are struggling to find a use for Facebook. Often
the social networking site becomes an embarrassment, as staff vent
their frustrations publicly at the company. It has also been losing
out because over-zealous HR teams run background checks on new
recruits by looking at their FaceBook profiles. And a recent study
found that security on FaceBook is only
"average".
However, SuperSwitcher is looking to capitalise on the social
networking site's user base. Established by German siblings Anna
and Friedrich Rojahn, SuperSwitcher targets 25 to 45 year olds, who
the founders believe are most likely to switch utility suppliers
and use social networking sites.
Friedrich Rojham, managing director of SuperSwitcher, said the
site was using Facebook to make it easier for people to sign-up and
use the service. Users do not need to register on SuperSwitcher to
use the srevice. Instead, Rojahn said, "We are using FaceBook
Connect to allow users to login using their FaceBook IDs."
He is also using FaceBook's social networking to enable users to
broadcast to their friends how much they have saved on their
utility bills. He hopes that since people value the opinion of
their friends, new customers may turn to SuperSwitcher by referrals
through Facebook.
SuperSwitcher has built a Facebook applet, allowing users to
switch utility suppliers directly in Facebook, without having to
move to the SuperSwitcher website.
In terms of technology, Rojham used external contractors to
build the Facebook functionality, although he also runs a small
internal IT team for the SuperSwitcher site development. "Facebook
is only four years old. A contractor may cost more, but they will
have the experience and can produce better quality code
faster."
In terms of support, Rojham said the documentation was "quite
good". He said, "There is a very active developer community, so if
you do run into problems, these can be solved quite quickly."
However, he warned that businesses looking to develop on the
Facebook platform may need to overcome tricky technical hurdles.
"On the negative side of things, Facebook seems very focused on
supporting PHP only. So if you are using a different language, such
as Python, you sometimes have to create workarounds, or use
solutions developed by others in the community, which are of course
less well-documented, and help from the Facebook team can be harder
to come by."