Facebook Apps have had both good and bad publicity over the last few years since Social Media awareness has been growing. Some think it’s the most amazing thing in the world that lets you access draws, print out coupons and get discounts and codes to your favourite restaurants and cafes, and some hate it – it’s the annoying gateway you must go through to read some newspaper articles online, and once you get to the gateway, the App throws some scary stuff at you that you must do in order to access the article, such as posting to your Facebook Timeline.
I used to be in the second category – I HATED Facebook Apps – I was tired of the Farmville requests, and those annoying gateways that made me think twice whether I want my friends to see that I had accessed the recent ‘Kardashian Krisis’ article. But once I set up SocialeMedia, and we started to deal with companies wanting to monetize on the Social Media trend by using it as a tool to gain exposure and a bigger client base, I found another great use of Facebook Apps. These were the business Apps. We got developers on board to start making them because our clients could see the true value behind using them on their Facebook Pages.
So what IS this ‘value’ of the Facebook App? It is simply another version of list-building. Any good business person, or marketer knows that in order to have a successful business, or organisation, you need to be building a list of supporters, people who are interested, and may buy whatever you’re offering in future.
We started experimenting, and once we found which Apps were working best, we started to get our clients to use them. And they LOVED them. Let me re-phrase that. They LOVED the results the Apps were bringing in. One client we had was a local bar, and within 2 weeks, their database had tripled, thanks to a Facebook App we made for them, and the effect of it could be seen in the accounts books.
So here’s some ideas of the types and uses of Facebook Apps that I strongly recommend you get – you may not order them from our developers team to make them, but understand the general idea, and try incorporating your Facebook App into your business Facebook Page, and see the results that happen:
The general use, or gist, if you like of the most effective Facebook App we’ve encountered is the Simple List-Building one. Make an App that asks a visitor on your Facebook Page to ‘Like’ your page, which in turn gives them access to enter their e-mail address into the App window (which will feed straight into your database). To entice them to join the mailing list, use one of the following concepts:
- A really simple offer can be ‘keep up with our latest news by signing up to our list’
- A free download. Once they enter their e-mail address and verify it, they will get access to a free download of an e-book, a poster, or anything else. Think what do you give out your clients for free right now? What do your clients value most in your business? Say you’re a consultant, where you can’t really give anything out ‘for free’. Why not make a PDF document that has 20 tips for choosing the best consultant in your area of expertise. Give people value.
- A discount or coupon. Playing on the ‘free download’ concept above, once people verify their e-mail address, you can get them to download a coupon that gives them a discount for a product or service your business provides.
- A code. This has been very popular in the hospitality industry – once a person enters their e-mail address, they get a ‘code’ which can be unique or not – when they come in, they can show you the code on their cell phone, or mention it when ordering or buying, in order to get a discount, or take up another offer you’ve advertised on the Facebook App.
Of course, there are many other uses, but have a think about some other concepts you can run, thanks to a Facebook App:
- Contest App. Get your fans to enter a contest through the App by registering their interest in the draw or competition. You can go as far as asking people to post stories, or photos and get your fans to vote on the one they think is best. The opportunities are endless!
- Sharing App. Entice your fans to ‘Share’ your Page with their friends by clicking a button on the App to go into a draw to win a product, or a discount off one of your services
So what are you waiting for? Get out there, and get Facebook Apping, and build that list! 😀