After doing some analysis on my website, I learned that 29% of web users, and 33% of mobile users drop off AFTER they click "connect to facebook." So they click on connect and then go to FB, and dont login and we never see them again.
I am trying to figure out why, and my guess is that we ask for too many permissions, or our mobile site is not displaying using the m.facebook, but using the regular FB site. Are there any other suggestions you guys may think why?
It depends on the permissions you are asking when they connect. I often use the "Facebook" registration option on sites, as it saves time entering in all of my info.
However, I regularly see sites asking for a lot more permissions than they need for what you are trying to do. For example, a lot of sites ask for permission to post on your Facebook profile. Why would this permission be needed to allow you to register on the site? If a tool of feature of the site requires this, the permissions should be asked at the time that this feature is used, not when first connecting.
I say close to half of the sites I try using the Facebook Connect method I end up closing because it is asking for excessive permissions. Depending on if it is a website I really want to use I may sign up using the non-Facebook method, but in a lot of cases it is not worth the trouble so I move on.
So, while I'm not sure if this is the case in your situation, it may be something to consider. I'm sure I'm not the only one that doesn't like allowing a site to do all sorts of things just to register or login.
I don't have a Facebook account. If Facebook Connect is the only option, as it is for the comments section on The Huffington Post and as it once was for Answers.com and Spotify and Zynga's games, I'll leave and not come back. And there are many other web users like me in this respect. Some are paranoid about Facebook's privacy practices, while others just don't feel like creating a Facebook account just to log into one site if they already use a Twitter account or an OpenID identifier (Google account, LiveJournal, AOL, Yahoo, etc.) for other sites. You might improve conversion by supporting more identity providers, much as Stack Exchange supports Google and other OpenID providers in addition to Facebook.
Even among Facebook users, some people don't want their posts associated with the name on their Facebook account. They might want to keep their work identity and hobby identity separate. Or they might want to provide politically sensitive information but do not want it associated with their real name, in order to avoid retaliation from a state or employer. A lot of sites where Facebook Connect is the only option provide no way to post anonymously or pseudonymously; instead, they always associate each post with the name on the Facebook account.
And some apps require not only a Facebook account but more specifically a verified Facebook account. The comments section on The Huffington Post is one of them. Verifying a Facebook account requires a mobile phone capable of receiving SMS messages and a valid subscription to SMS service on this phone, and its number must be globally unique among Facebook users. This requires paying a recurring fee to a cellular carrier and excludes users who use a land line and users who share a cell phone with another Facebook user who is verified.
Since you are simplifying the signup process using FB connect, you will have "less qualified" users signing up and never visiting again. When the signup process requires more user input, users who sign up are more likely to use the app.
You can try splitting your permissions across two different Facebook apps. The first one has the minimum permissions required to finish basic sign up.
After the user has signed up you give them access to your app. When you want to post to their Facebook feed or other things requiring more permissions. You display a "Enable Facebook" button that connects the second app that has more permissions.
It's a two stage connection process that I've seen some apps doing.
