How to Develop Applications on Facebook to Promote Your Business

Social Media Websites have changed the way people communicate with one other. Besides the traditional exchange of messages, people can use applications to communicate and interact with friends and family. Facebook is a popular social media website that has taken interaction to a new level. They have a whole range of applications that are fun and user-friendly. This helps them to interact in different and newer ways with their contacts.

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This trend has led to a surge in the number of applications being developed for Facebook. Most businesses see a huge potential in this field. They aim to tap into this big database of users through various applications to promote their business among these users.

Overview of a Facebook application

Before you develop a Facebook application, it’s important to understand its anatomy. This can help you to better design and develop your application. Every Facebook application should have an About Page that gives a brief overview of your application and what users can do with it. It is more like the marketing page of your app. The next is the Canvas Page through which users can use your application. The canvas page should have the user’s dashboard at the top as this will help the user to manage contacts and navigate from his or her personal profile to the application and back easily. The next part is the user’s profile. This has to be used effectively to attract users to use your application. You can allow users to bookmark your application as this can increase the popularity of your application. You should allow users to bookmark the application through their profile.

Publishing is an important part of any application as this helps users to publish information about your application and what they learned about it on their wall as well as on their contact’s wall. This is a vital means of increasing popularity for your application and so it should be handled well. The application should allow users to send request to their contacts to use your application and this is another way to popularize your application.
This is the overall anatomy of any Facebook application. Once you develop one after keeping these aspects in mind, the next step is to integrate it with Facebook. Though an application can be of any kind, it has to follow a set of principles to be integrated with a Facebook profile. This also follows the access and usage points of Facebook.
Firstly, there is an application directory to which the application should be submitted. This will help the users to access your application by browsing through this application directory. It’s a good idea to make it possible to access your application from the user’s profile. The user should be able to control privacy settings for the use, display and publish of your application. It should also use Facebook APIs to interact with the users.

Technical aspects of a developing an application

It’s important to understand what your user likes before beginning to develop an application. Also, look for uniqueness. It should not be similar to another existing Facebook application. Easy usage and creativity are the hallmarks of any application and so as a developer, he should incorporate both these aspects.
Most applications are developed using ASP .NET with C#. The markup language used is FBML (FaceBook Markup Language). This markup code can be used by using a small program called setFBML in your code. You can also use AJAX in your application. One more Software used to build a Facebook application is Ruby on Rails. You can use this to even develop a desktop Facebook application. PHP is also a common programming language used to develop applications for Facebook. You can choose a language that you are comfortable with.

One of the best places to look for more technical information on building Facebook apps is the documentation provided by Facebook for developers. This has the most comprehensive and updated information that can help developers to know more about APIs and plug-ins. http://www.focus.com/briefs/software-development/developing-hit-facebook-app/ is another website that provides detailed information to Facebook application developers.

Tips and tricks to use while developing the application

Developing a Facebook application can be quite a challenge. Some tips and tricks can go a long way in making your application an effective tool for your business.
If you are looking to develop multiple applications at the same time, make sure you have separate API keys, hidden values and code. It may sound basic, but there is a high chance for it to get mixed up and debugging can get difficult.

While developing applications, use the debugging tools given by Facebook. This can make life easy for you. Badly formatted FBML can be a problem and it’s better to take care of it from the beginning. Finally, keep in mind that it can take a while for your application to be approved and to get listed in the application directory. So, plan for it ahead and give sometime for approval.

Using the application to promote the business

Once you develop your app, the next step is to use it to promote your business. It is a powerful means to promote or say all that you want about your business to the millions of users spread across different countries. You can also choose a certain demographic group to promote your products. This will give you a chance to do targeted advertising and can increase your revenue by leaps and bounds.
Another powerful aspect of these apps is that it helps you to interact with your potential buyers. This is a great way to do business because you get to learn the preferences, likes and dislikes of your targeted group. You can also get a regular stream of feedback from the users. These are invaluable in any business. It can go a long way in helping you to improve your products or services to better suit the preferences of your customers. All this simply means more popularity and revenue for your business. There are many apps used by businesses today such as the following:

A popular one is the GL Print Business Card app that offers tools to design a virtual business card. This can also be displayed on the user’s profile page so that contacts can know more about what the user is up to.

Networked Blogs is another popular app that helps users to promote their business and personal blogs on their profile page. It is a unique way to promote business among the contacts in the user’s list.

IEndorse is an app that allows users to write testimonials about the company installing it. It is a great way to get some valuable feedback about the products or company and contacts can view this testimonial and know more about the company.

Professional Profile is a business app that helps users to have a separate list of professional contacts. It helps to separate the personal and professional life and its also possible to maintain information and activities related to the user’s business.

MyMoney is an online banking app that is great for small businesses because it helps them to better manage their finances. It interacts with different banks and financial institutions and makes it a one-stop place to manage money across different bank accounts.

These are some examples of how businesses use Facebook apps to promote their business and it also goes to show the huge potential available in this marketing media for innovation.

Conclusion

Developing personalized apps for your business is a great way to advertise and market your products to the millions of people who use Facebook. You can develop your own app that will best promote your business and products to the users. You can also advertise to a certain group of people and get to know their preferences and feedback. All these can give a big boost to your business and so it can be a lucrative form of advertising for your business.