5 Essential Apps for Your Business’s Facebook Fan Page

Nowadays, viral marketing is an essential part in the marketing communication mix. Companies develop fan pages , launch ad campaigns, etc… On Mashable, Matt Silverman describes 5 vital applications for a company’s Facebook fan page to generate more traffic and to engage more users.

The first app, The Static FBML, stimulates the interactivity in the left-sided column. As most users are used to navigating through a vertical left-sided column, they are more likely to search for extra links here. Keeping a consistent image in mind, companies should always try to stick to their logo, colors and language use as much as possible.

Wildfire Promotions allows companies to give away free stuff via Facebook. As getting things for free is one of the biggest reasons why Facebookers become a fan of a certain brand, this is u must-have application. Besides, it is possible to connect Wildfire to other social network sites, hereby announcing any changes made to the promotions.

The third app, Social RSS, allows you to share content on your fan page that you already put online on other social networks or blogs. Although you can subscribe automatically to this, it is dangerous to do so. Facebook users might actually ‘un-fan’ a company because of the double content they often receive.

The fourth app is, according to me, the most powerful app: YouTube for Pages. Developing video content is one of the major advantages of viral marketing. It allows you to spread a persuasive message in a very cost-effective way and to possibly reach a target audience traditional media can only dream of. Hence, not linking video content to your fan page is an unforgivable mistake.

I tend not to believe in the power of the fifth application, Polls, as this is something developed in the web 1.0 environment.

Jumping to conclusions, it is strongly recommended that companies not only develop a creative viral marketing plan but also a strategy to support the long-term goals. This involves research and following up trends and innovations in social media.

Source: Matt Silverman, Mashable (www.mashable.com), 28 March 2010