Custom Apps for Business Pages

In This Chapter

[check] Using apps for Facebook marketing

[check] Extending the Facebook experience

[check] Discovering iframes, application pages, and canvas pages

[check] Finding out what apps can do to increase engagement

If you're a Facebook marketer, you're likely always looking for ways to increase the engagement that you have with your customers. For many Facebook users, interesting status updates aren't enough to hold their attention. Facebook apps allow you to create a far more engaging Facebook presence. You're not just looking for more people to visit your business page and Like it; you also want to give followers more of a reason to interact with your brand or find other value.

In addition, a typical Facebook user does not want to leave Facebook to view content surrounding your brand. Because of this, having content outside Facebook can lead to fewer conversions and sales from your customers. Having an app right on your business page inside Facebook reduces your chances of Facebook users leaving your site and you losing the sale. This also provides a great landing page for any Facebook ads you may have created on Facebook.

Apps are designed to deliver all the interactive elements of Facebook to your followers in a custom way. With an app, you have access to Facebook features from the Like button to the ability to access the friend lists of your followers and incorporating those into your app experience. You can even prevent followers from seeing certain content until they Like your page! Apps can use just about any feature, person, thing, or relationship you see in the Facebook user experience. To write an app, you can use any web-enabled code (such as PHP, JavaScript, and other web software languages) to develop custom apps for Facebook.

Using Apps for Facebook Marketing

Companies that make apps for their business pages want to make Facebook a more engaging environment and extend the connection to their audience of followers. The most common appearance of an application on Facebook is the page tab. Within a business page, you can create any app and install it into a page tab, limited only by the capabilities of the web itself. Some apps are a simple aesthetic element, such as an image that appears at the top of your page (as a square below the cover photo) to enhance the look of your business page. Other apps are more complex, such as interactive elements your followers can use. Building an app gives you the opportunity to integrate more deeply into the core Facebook experience. Your app can integrate with the news feed as well as notifications, requests to a user's friends, and other features.

Here are a few of the things that apps can add to your marketing plan:

* Share content in a new way. Apps can use many, if not all, elements of the web by integrating elements of your web experience right in your Facebook page. You can view anything that can be created on the web through any web browser. The only limitation is your browser size — if you can write the code, you can do it. This model means that the content that you would host elsewhere (on another service or website) can be viewed in the tab on Facebook. This means that whatever you would like to share can be shared on Facebook as well.

Apps can also interact with other elements of Facebook if you build the features into the apps. For example, app participants can post content on their Facebook timeline.

* Gain followers in a short time. Apps enable you to put together powerful promotions, which allow you to create an interactive experience for your followers. Doing so can empower you to create promotions, contests, and more, which enable you to increase your Facebook audience in a short time.

Because apps can interact with Facebook features such as the news feed and notifications, a successful promotion can have a viral effect, drawing other participants through friends. With these features, you can catapult your audience to a new level.

* Provide a valuable service. The longest lasting and most effective apps provide value to the consumer, not just an interesting experience with your brand or business page. Games that offer a desired value to users will be used more and uninstalled less. This sort of value leads to strong audience engagement. It's fine to have a Facebook app that allows you to virtually pour your favorite soda and share it with your friends, but if you can use a Facebook app to get weather updates or create customized birthday cards, you can get so much more mileage out of the app.

For some, a "valuable service" may mean games. A successful game might lead to in-game purchases for new levels and features. More than half of Facebook users log in to games, and at least 20 percent of them have purchased in-game features. Aside from generating revenue through in-game sales, apps of this sort can be an advertising opportunity.

* Maintain the Facebook experience. Facebook users are more likely to interact with your company and the experience your company provides if they can remain on Facebook while doing it. Apps allow you to accomplish this by providing a custom experience for your company right on your company's Facebook page.

If you use Facebook ads, this feature improves even further. Those who click your Facebook ad can land on a specific tab you've created for your page. Because these people stay on your page, they are more likely to Like the page and get future updates from you, and they are much more likely to convert to real customers for your business.

Extending the Facebook Experience

Page tabs and other types of apps take connecting with an audience to new levels in several ways. In this section, you find some of the ways that all Facebook apps extend the capabilities of your Facebook marketing.

Screen real estate

One of the simplest things that you gain with a page tab is more space. The timeline and cover image for your page are pretty much all you have without apps. In addition, all design elements of your page must fit in a compatible format. Page tabs give you the capability to customize the look, feel, and experience of your page outside these boundaries.

A page tab can use up to 810 pixels of screen width. With the extra real estate, you can include more pictures, videos, and other content on your business page. Having that space is valuable to a marketer because you can offer more features or say more things — without the user leaving Facebook. The extra screen width also makes the sales experience more enjoyable, such as the Coca-Cola Store on their Facebook page, shown in Figure 1-1.

Social channels

Apps provide a great avenue for increasing the number of followers because they easily move through the key social channels that make Facebook interactive.

Imagine a friend is participating in a new fun game. While he plays, he may be prompted to share his story relative to his Facebook experience on his timeline as a status update. (See Figure 1-2.) Perhaps he will be asked to invite other friends to enjoy the game. Inevitably, his activity in the app will also appear in the ticker on each of his friends' home pages. This encourages his friends to...