Facebook Connect and Bump (mobile) - building audience

Bump (electronic business card/file swapping) makes great use of your Facebook friends list to help you get more from your electronic card swap. By using Facebook Connect, it takes that initial business card introduction and leverages it by using Facebook to see who and what you have in common.

What does this mean?

If you meet somebody in person, Bump will tell you the friends or business contacts you have in common. Social acceptance, be it personal or business related, is very important. If you have mutual connections then the relationship moves up a level. This information is passed back, in real time, to your phone or Facebook account, which is good inside info for any relationship building, be it a sales pitch or a conversation with a stranger in a bar…

To be specific, some of the Facebook Connect integration that Bump includes is as follows:

• Notifications: receive a private Facebook notification when you bump someone not in your friends list.
• Compare: discover mutual Facebook friends when comparing friends
• Wall updates: update your wall with the contact you bumped

In this example, the Bump guys are using social networks to amplify normal physical connections / introductions. Facebook Connect gives you the tools to do this. All you need is a “window” into Facebook Connect, which in this case is your mobile phone. (See article from Mashable on the top 10 implications of Facebook Connect.)

We in Betapond are not consumer marketers or salespeople, yet the benefits to us are pretty clear.

In all forms of consumer business, social media connections and peer to peer recommendations are the new must-have advertising messages. Yet it is not rocket science.

Hats off to Bump. Clear, common-sense thinking in a world gone mad for complex technology.