Facebook Apps in the business world

Today Facebook is the most common name among social media platforms.

It has over 1.15 billion active users and there are over 1 million Facebook users in Sri Lanka. Therefore it has become a great place to reach out to potential target audiences for your business or service.

Facebook is mostly about engagement, just like other social media platforms. Simply having a page will not create interest or keep fans coming back to the page for more. Furthermore brands that have integrated social media in their website for elements like sharing, and social logins have realised the potential of joining the two worlds together.

These applications are meant to simulate a more lively, energetic page which creates opportunity for businesses to capture audiences’ information, engage them in competitions and to even sell their products straight through their brand page.

Some of the key benefits of integrating apps for your page include;

§  Ability to add functionality to your existing Facebook page such as buying or selling

§  Generating traffic to your site through linked pages referral programs, and offers

§  Ability to improve consumer engagement through competitions, polling, quizes

§  Ability to boost conversions through special deals and coupons

Facebook Apps and Business

Facebook apps are small programs. They are mostly created by third-party developers and they use their own servers to run these apps. They are not hosted by Facebook. It is important however when developing a Facebook app, that companies use Facebook platform policies.

On most Facebook pages these Apps are viewable through the “Tabs” displayed next to the “About” section.

Setting up a FB App for your brand Page

You will need to have a Facebook profile page to start with. Thereon, you need to register that profile as a Facebook Developers account. If this is your first time creating Facebook apps, then you have to register as a developer. There are a few steps involved in this process, such as entering company information, payment information and also verifying your account.

The registration steps involve linking a payment method (such as a PayPal account) for developers looking to earn from their applications by selling them through the App centre.

Creating your App – This needs to be done (coded and then hosted) outside of Facebook, and is what will display inside your custom Facebook tab. To ensure the page’s content displays correctly on Facebook, make sure that the width of your web page is either set to 100%, 520px or 810px.  Your tab will work like an “iFrame” that loads inside Facebook — you can display pretty much whatever content you’d like inside your custom Facebook tab. If you have developer support you can include interactive features on your page like a form submission to track leads, contact details with chat option, or news feeds to give latest updates through this tab.

Setting up your Tab on your page

§  Log in as a Facebook developer

§  Create and name your new app

§  Choose an image and update basic Info for the app

§  Create the content that will display within the app’s tab [As said above]

§  Enter the URL information of where the page is located including http:// and https:// locations

§  Tell Facebook what content you want to display on your custom tab (You need to enter the URL with the following parametershttp://www.facebook.com/dialog/pagetab?app_id=YOUR_APP_ID&next=YOUR_URL )

§  Disable Sandbox Mode (testing mode) when you are ready to go live

§  Add your tab to your selected Facebook page

You might be able to set this up yourself, but it might be good to obtain support from a developer to create more targeted, marketing-oriented applications that will not just create leads, but benefit your bottom line.

Created: November 7th 2013