Facebook Blog Information for Everyone - Apphire.com

Yep, this is what is being discussed in one of the forums. If you haven’t been paying attention, fb made a big change to the items that are displayed on your profile box. They are now only showing the top 12 apps or the apps that you specify on your profile page.  The profile page has been a great tool to help take your app viral.

You really need to read this forum to get the perspective of fb developers to see how they are cutting the legs out from developers who have helped to make their site so popular. We have started this conversation with one of our past clients so that fb can take notice of what they are doing to the people who are just getting into the apps marketplace.

The point I brought up is fb grew exponentially once they allowed developers to start creating their own apps. Now it seems like they want to gear things toward the mainstream app houses, and leave the little guy out. They need to remember that almost every mainstream app house was once small developers who helped to bring traffic to fb while growing their own apps.

There is a good article in Financial times that looks at the amount of data that is being kept by Facebook and other social media properties. The article also makes many references to the Open Social ID, which is a very good idea from our perspective. It would be nice to be able to enter our profile information one time and then be able to go to any social media property that we would like and not have to reinput new information.

But this also brings up a good question about the amount of privacy that is kept when you use services such as Open Social ID. All of your data can be accessed once you sign up for any social media property. This could include some very private information such as birthdate, city, and family names.

I guess 2008 will be the year where this type of service either is welcomed into the masses or meets obstacles that stop it from flourishing. According to the article, Jeremiah Owyang, an analyst at Forrester Research says “This is the trend of 2008,”, so I guess we will have to wait and see what happens.

We previously looked at Facebook advertising and will now continue the discussion with a real world example.

Let’s take a look at real world examples of this. As a computer user and tinkerer, I am always trying to learn about how to do different things with the internet and technology. If, for instance, I am trying to learn how to build my own webpages and I need to choose between a web host which offers me step-by-step help with setting up my host, figuring out HTML or drag-in-drop programs, assists with me buying a domain name and setting up a DNS or a company which says “We’ll hold your files, but you have to figure out the rest on your own”, who am I most likely to go with? In order for starting application, companies, service providers to begin attracting customers they have to go “above and beyond” the call of duty. Sure, a more experienced computer user might not want to get phone calls from the customer service reps of the company they’re using, because it’s a pain to deal with them and answer 20 questions when the computer user only wants to be left alone to create their masterpiece. However, those types of users are likely not interested in one’s application anyway because they can write their own and fine tune it to their own needs.

In order to advertise for one’s Facebook application, start with a small loyal base and let them do the work for you. Be available for the new comers and old, and remember that the human connection behind the Facebook application is going to get more followers than a killer application itself.

    We love great internet success stories.  It is inspiring to everyone, seriously, you have to love a story where a 19 year old has had so much success.  Now I would have hoped this guy from my area of Louisiana with the last name of Bourque, but I am assuming he is from somewhere that has snow as he list snowboarding as one of his hobbies.

His site is Uberaffiliate.com and he goes into some great post about working as an affiliate marketer.  There is a reason that I am bringing him up on our Facebook site, it isn’t because he is just cool.  He actually figured out a way to make some mad money off of Facebook Flyers, which doesn’t exist anymore.  The respect that this guy has gotten in the blog world since he posted the details of his story are amazing.  If you browse to his site and then click on “How I Pwned Facebook” and he goes into great detail about how he made his money on Facebook.

There are several ways to advertise a Facebook application. This can be done through mass e-mail lists, word-of-mouth, submitting the application to the Facebook depository, rallying a “street team” of friends and application users to spread the word about the application through forum discussions, notes, blog entries, etc.. There are also third-party companies, such as Payperpost, which pays bloggers to write posts and do advertising for certain companies, products, or ideals. The main theme in advertising is simply telling people.

The first mistake one can make with advertising is putting themselves in a place where they are considered spammers. Sending e-mails out to people who have not given permission, or posting on forum discussion boards where the application has no relevance to the discussion is a sure fire way to get people to avoid using the application. If one is labeled as a spammer, or the product is given a reputation of being promoted by internet trolls then no one is going to use it. It could be the best, most outstanding application known to Facebook, but the spam tag can be a kill to any great idea.

The best way to advertise is to make a great Facebook application and then encourage others to tell their friends. Start with getting one’s own friends to use it, give feedback on the application, get them involved in the process. If one feels like they are personally involved, they are going to do whatever they can to ensure the application’s success. When people offer suggestions, report bugs, or give ideas, listen to those ideas and implement as needed. Be available. While an application may not be outstanding when it is first released, if the developer is accessible to the public, listens to ideas, tries to implement those ideas, etc., then a following is going to begin just from that. It’s not always about the application itself, but about the people and ideas behind that application.