User Selected Affiliation with Brands in a Social Networking System

• US 20140074926A1
• Filed: 09/13/2012
• Published: 03/13/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/13/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Inventors: Bosworth, Andrew G., Chandlee, William Blakeley, Buxani, Ravi Mahesh Daswani
• Granted Patent: US 10,325,273 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/204
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking

Abstract

A social networking system allows users that are people to partner with users that are non-person entities. A partnership allows the entity participating in the partnership to personalize an associated page with content from the person participating in the partnership and similarly allows the person to include certain content from the entity, made available because of the partnership, in the person'"'"'s user profile. The entity may provide additional benefits, such as enrollment in a rewards program or access to new products, to a user participating in a partnership. The partnership is bidirectional, and is separate from other unidirectional connection mechanisms provided by the social networking system such as indications of affinity (e.g., “likes”), friendships, and subscriptions.

Claims

14. A method comprising:

storing, in a social networking system, a user profile for a person, the user profile associated with one or more objects stored by the social networking system;

storing, in the social networking system, a plurality of entity pages each associated with an entity;

for each of the entities, determining the person'"'"'s affinity for the entity;

selecting a suggested entity based on the affinities;

sending to the person a suggestion to establish a partnership with the suggested entity;

based on the suggestion, receiving a request to establish the partnership between the person and the suggested entity;

storing, in the social networking system, a connection between an entity page associated with the selected entity and the user profile, the connection having a partnership connection type; and

providing information about the partnership to the selected entity, wherein the entity provides a reward to the person based on the information about the partnership.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein selecting a suggested entity based on the affinities comprises:

ranking the entities based on the determined affinities; and

selecting the suggested entity based on the ranking

16. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

providing an item of media content associated with the selected entity responsive to receiving the request from the person having the connection between the entity page and the user profile, the item of media content not accessible to persons not having a partnership with the selected entity.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

responsive to a request from the person, modifying the user profile to include the item of media content.

18. The method of claim 14, wherein selecting the suggested entity based on the affinities comprises:

ranking the entities based on the affinities;

determining whether the person satisfies criteria provided by the entities; and

selecting the suggested entity based on the ranking and whether the person satisfies criteria provided by the entities.

19. A method comprising:

storing, in a social networking system, a user profile for a person, the user profile associated with one or more objects stored by the social networking system;

storing, in the social networking system, an entity page associated with an entity;

receiving, from the person, a request to establish a partnership between the user and the entity;

storing a connection between the entity page and the user profile, the connection having a partnership connection type; and

displaying a modified entity page to the user based on the stored connection having the partnership connection type.

1. A method comprising:

storing, in a social networking system, a user profile for a person, the user profile associated with one or more objects stored by the social networking system;

storing, in the social networking system, an entity page associated with an entity, the page associated with one or more objects stored by the social networking system;

receiving, by the social networking system, a partnership request to establish a partnership between the person and the entity;

storing a connection associated with a partnership between the entity page and the user profile, the connection having a connection type associated with a partnership;

receiving a request from to display an item of media content associated with the entity; and

displaying the item of media content associated with the entity responsive to receiving the request from the person having the connection between the entity page and the user profile.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing information about the connection between the entity page and the user profile to the entity, wherein the entity provides a reward to the person based on the information about the connection.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the reward comprises granting the person access to a loyalty program associated with the entity.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the loyalty program grants the person access to a private website external to the social networking system.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the loyalty program grants the person one or more discounts on goods and services.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein the reward from the entity comprises providing products or services associated with the entity to the person at a reduced price.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

receiving a request to connect the person and the entity in the social networking system; and

responsive to receiving the request, storing an additional unilateral connection between the entity page and the user profile without enabling the user profile to display the item of media content associated with the entity.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

displaying a representation of the user profile, the representation including visual representations of one or more objects associated with the user profile; and

responsive to storing the connection associated with the partnership between the entity page and the user profile, modifying the displayed representation of the user profile to include the item of media content associated with the entity.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein storing the connection associated with the partnership between the entity page and the user profile comprises:

requesting a fee from the entity; and

responsive to receiving the fee from the entity, storing the connection associated with the partnership between the entity page and the user profile.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the entity is notified of the partnership request responsive to the person meeting one or more partnership criteria associated with the entity.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the partnership request is received responsive to the social networking system transmitting a suggestion to establish the partnership with the entity to the person.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the suggestion to establish the partnership with the entity is based on one or more actions of the person stored by the social networking system.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the suggestion to establish the partnership with the entity is based on characteristics of the user stored in the user profile.

20. The method of claim 19, further comprising:

requesting approval of the partnership from the entity; and

responsive to the entity approving the partnership, storing the connection.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein requesting approval of the partnership from the entity comprises:

determining a number of existing partnerships between the person and other entities; and

responsive to the number of existing partnerships not exceeding a threshold number, requesting approval of the partnership from the entity.

21-1. The method of claim 19, wherein requesting approval of the partnership from the entity comprises:

determining whether the user profile includes data satisfying one or more partnership criteria specified by the entity; and

responsive to the user profile including data satisfying the one or more partnership criteria, requesting approval of the partnership from the entity.