#facebookapplication

When Facebook was originally launched, it was predominantly used by extrovert individuals who wanted to keep in touch with their friends and generally socialize. But with the passage of time, Facebook has assumed incredibly gigantic dimensions and it is now being increasingly used by business community as part of its marketing strategy.

In today’s Web 2.0 culture we see all websites, particularly the ubiquitous Facebook, inundated with new applications, games, contests, events, opinion, polls, gifts, cards, quizzes etc. However, these new tools are not there merely for entertainment purposes but also to help businesses explore new markets.

It is a known fact that there are several million users on Facebook. Thousand of applications are being developed on a daily basis and bulk of them to help business organizations.  Facebook now features a whopping 550,000 applications and most of the applications are there to promote business on Facebook.

Some of the distinct advantages of Facebook applications to business enterprises are Brand Awareness, Customer Engagement, Traffic Generation, Reputation building, Feedback from clients etc. Facebook applications are an interesting part of social media marketing and rampantly used by the business community.

This new type of sales promotion can be very rewarding in view of the fact that every time someone uses your application, the name of your company will pop up. Brand positioning is crucial nowadays – especially on the web – because you will have to constantly compete with different businesses on the global E-market.  Applications on sites like Facebook serve this purpose thanks to the repeated exposure of your brand name.

Facebook helps you to market your products and services to 800 million + users of Facebook by developing custom Facebook Applications. For Apps on Facebook you have the Facebook Platform technologies including Social Plugins, the Graph API, Authentication, Open Graph protocol, Iframes, Facebook Connect and Platform Dialogs.

You can also create a Facebook Page for your App from the App Dashboard.  The Page will differ somewhat from regular Pages. It will have a “Go To App” or “Play Game” button and other App-related links.

To drive more traffic to apps on Facebook, you should explore various social channels that facilitate new users to find your app as well as existing users to re-engage with your app.

Furthermore, you can publish content to the stream using the Feed Dialog. You can induce users to publish stories about what they are doing in your app. Use Insights for your app to monitor how users are interacting with your app.

There is a proliferation of Facebook applications and they are mushrooming by the day. Both business organizations as well as individual developers are constantly exploring the potential of having their content splashed over millions of Facebook profiles.