Systems and methods for associating social media systems and web pages

Abstract

Systems and methods for the creation and management of electronic associations between social media systems and web pages. Such associations promote greater interactions between web page visitors and users of social media pages. A social graph management system (SGMS) receives information related to a web page, and creates associations between the web page and social media pages. A process of creating such associations involves configuration of social media software for insertion into the web page. Furthermore, creating associations also involves creation of an intermediary page (and related data structures) by the SGMS in order to direct traffic between the web page and social media pages. User activity in the web page is tracked in addition to web traffic arriving at the intermediary page at subsequent times for computation of various analytics.

1 . A method for creating and managing associations between web pages and social media systems through the use of social graph objects, comprising the steps of:
 receiving information corresponding to creation of a social graph object within a respective web page, wherein the social graph object relates to a respective social media system;   generating data structures and computer code corresponding to the social graph object based on the received information corresponding to creation of the social graph object;   creating an intermediary page that enables transmission of information between the respective social media system and the respective web page, wherein the intermediary page includes the data structures corresponding to the social graph object; and   providing the generated computer code to be embedded within the respective web page to enable communications between the respective web page, the intermediary page, and the respective social media system,   whereby, upon embedding of the generated computer code into the respective web page, the web page is capable of performing social media system functionality via the open graph object.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the social graph object includes a social media plugin that enables communication between the respective social media system and the respective web page. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the intermediary page comprises a redirector page that directs communications between the respective web page and the respective social media system. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the intermediary page comprises a pseudo page that provides information about the respective web page to the respective social media system. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the generated computer code is embedded automatically within the respective web page. 
     
     
         6 . A method for creating and managing associations between web pages and social media systems, wherein the associations are based on information related to the web pages used in combination with software protocols that are followed by the social media systems, comprising the steps of:
 receiving information related to a web page to be associated with a respective social media system;   generating computer code for a social media software program based on the received information related to the web page and a respective software protocol that is followed by the respective social media system, wherein the computer code for the social media software program is inserted in the web page to enable management of user interaction with the social media software program on the web page;   creating an intermediary page comprising data structures developed based on the received information related to the web page and the respective software protocol that is followed by the respective social media system, wherein the intermediary page enables communication between the web page and the respective social media system;   communicating a request to the respective social media system for activation of the intermediary page; and   upon activation by the respective social media system of the intermediary page, processing information retrieved from the intermediary page corresponding to user interaction with the web page.   
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 6 , wherein the data structures comprise objects on a social graph. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 6 , wherein the data structures comprise meta data and meta tags. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 6 , wherein the social media software program further enables communication of information relating to user interaction with the social media software program to the respective social media system. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 6 , wherein the intermediary page further comprises a pseudo page that provides information about the web page to the respective social media system, and a redirector page that enables communications between the web page and the respective social media system. 
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 6 , wherein the step of communicating the request to the respective social media system proceeds via an application programming interface (API). 
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 6 , wherein the social media software program comprises a social media plugin. 
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 6 , wherein the step of generating computer code for the social media software program comprises configuring an unconfigured social media plugin provided by the respective social media system. 
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 6 , wherein the information related to the web page is received from a system user via a graphical user interface (GUI). 
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 6 , wherein information corresponding to user interaction with the social media software program is displayed on associated social media pages of web page visitors by the respective social media system. 
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 15 , wherein information corresponding to user interaction with the social media software program further comprises information displayed on social media pages of friends of web page visitors. 
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 6 , wherein information corresponding to user interaction with the social media software program is used to compute analytics related to user activity on the web page and the respective social media system. 
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 17 , wherein the analytics are selected from the group comprising: a number of times certain content on the web page has been liked by social media system users, a number of times certain content on the web page has been recommended by social media system users, recent real time activities on the web page involving social media friends of visitors of the web page, originating IP addresses of visitors to the web page. 
     
     
         19 . A social graph management system (SGMS) for creating and managing associations between a web page and social media pages hosted by a social media system, comprising:
 a user interface for receiving information related to a respective web page over a network connection;   a database server coupled to the user interface for storing received information related to the web page; and   a processing module coupled to the database server for processing the stored information related to the web page, the processing module operative to:
 create data structures based on a respective software protocol that is followed by a respective social media system; 
 generate source code for a social media software program based on the respective software protocol followed by the respective social media system, the social media software program responsive to track user activity on the respective web page after being inserted in the respective web page; 
 create an intermediary page comprising the data structures, the intermediary page operative to redirect web traffic between the respective social media page and the respective web page; 
 communicate a request to the respective social media system for activation of the intermediary page; and 
 process information corresponding to web traffic and user activity between the respective web page and the respective social media system.