Why build one? Why have one? Below is why social media Apps are important.
- Building awareness – a Facebook app helps grow a business in the social media environment by bringing click through traffic.
- Generates Traffic – social media is all about generating traffic with the end goal of delivering customers through that traffic. Social media Apps prove to be beneficial to the brand as a whole. Apps such as photo contests, video contests, polls etc bring new users to your page which in turn will increase your followers.
- New customer acquisition – Facebook can act as a portal point to drive traffic to your site and other online properties.
- Access to the social world – aka the cool factor. You never know who’s actually using Facebook. Consider this; a potential customer is doing research on your brand through Facebook. they see your profile and see a number of positive posts about your brand, seeing an app where they can interact with your brand puts you in their mind and (if the end goal is a sale) will direct them through to your website for further research. Facebook is still rapidly growing in popularity and is not going away any time soon.
- User engagement – Facebook Apps promote engagement. They bring users to your page not only to look through your content but to pass time and interact with your business on more of a personal level.
- Recommendation – when used properly your companies’ presence on Facebook will produce positive recommendations among friends, associates and groups with shared interests. When building an App for a business a recommendation must be taken into account. For example, will the user then recommend this app to his/her friends or colleagues? If yes, then the App is a success. If not, back to the drawing board. Nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd. Facebook is a crowd.
- Lead generation – in addition to connecting with your current customers on Facebook, you must be able to connect to potential leads through the app. You must introduce your product or service. Notice introduce rather than sell? A winning strategy is more about getting the potential customer to click through to your website to learn more about your company. Use these Apps more as a lead generation. If people use the apps to go to your website, your half way to a sale.
- Collect user information – grow your database by collecting information from customers interacting with the App
Who benefits from Facebook Apps?
…… Anyone selling a service or a product.
Types of Facebook apps:
- Upload a photo or video and get audience to vote for favorite one. Photo or video with most likes wins. Example; ask audience to post photo of their DIY project and audience to vote for best photo. Photo with most likes wins a $500 voucher.
- Vote for your favorite and win, you (the company) upload a number of products / photos / videos etc and ask the audience to vote for their favorite (like a poll) at the end of this pick a winner of those who entered
- Create or design a custom app, fully customize an app to suit with backgrounds, colors, graphics, and content. For example the Audi A1 app created earlier in 2014. Pick a prize for the winner.
