Using Facebook Applications to Engage Customers - Marketing - Social Marketing

Keeping Customers Engaged with Facebook ApplicationsThe increasing user presence and rapid advancement of the internet means it is now very much a preferred means of direct communication with customers. A hugely popular activity on the internet is the prodigious usage or social networking sites.Facebook stands as the number one social networking site due to it's user-friendly frontage and wide range of functionalities. There are lots of reasons for Facebooks' cult follower-ship. Ease of use and content sharing, friend tagging and related users on shared items is another truly great Facebook feature. Facebook also allows the creation of secured groups and fan pages regarding your own brands, all available to the public at large.The most popular components of Facebook are it's many and varied applications. Facebook has an open platform for web developers and programmers to create different applications to run applications from within its framework.So, what's new about Facebook applications?Facebook features were more about traditional social media usages, such as friends adds and group creation related to common interests and affiliations, before the option of applications were added.Applications started by Facebook increased the functionality of the site towards much more interesting features, like social gaming, where you could include friends and even strangers linked from all around the world. Then, when Facebook opened its programming platform to developers the world over, who could develop applications and submit them to Facebook, a huge change took place. All these applications were made live for public usage once they were certified by Facebook and the floodgates opened.How do applications help the marketing of brands?An average user would only spend a few seconds on any homepage or other text rich section of a website. Comparably, on Facebook, text-based sections have their own limitations when it comes to holding the attention the users on the same page. That's where rich content and applications come into play.A game, such as UNO, on Facebook can engage a user for many hours. Social games like Farmville have brought about a new genre of Social Gaming, which is the latest buzzword in gaming circles.For a brand, a Facebook application can serve as a very effective tool for gathering and engaging a captive audience for a considerably longer length of time. Users that are hooked on a favourite game or application on Facebook will stay with it until the the game is finished. Using the opportunity to insert their logos and branding very subtly in the game, brands have come up trumps! Subtle messages like these are known to give more brand recall and attitude change compared to intrusive advertisements.Facebook provides usage stats of subscribers, which gives insight into the profile of users that the brand attracts and this is a huge advantage for the marketer. It can be compared with the intended target audience of the brand, and campaign changes can be done based on the findings. Unlike most surveys that are based on sample estimate, what you get to see here is a summary based on each and every user who has added the application.Developing Applications for a BrandUnlike most other participative aspects of social media, developing applications for Facebook requires enough programming knowledge. Facebook has a set of guidelines for the creation and submission of applications and developers working on the Facebook framework must be updated with the guidelines defined by the site for any application to run. Brand owners need to avail services of a developer who knows all the steps that go into the creation of successful Facebook applications to ensure that their brand makes its presence through one of the most engaging options available in online media.Get more information here for the best Facebook training available: /MakeFacebookCashFast