Facebook Apps - Part of Your Future?

 

Thanks to Dee Morrison (LAGirl13), the following article from Social Media Examiner crossed my path - 8 Facebook Apps To Enhance Your Facebook Page. Facebook and I have (somewhat) of an adversarial relationship, and I am not a techie in any sense of the work, so I wasn't sure about this. The one thing that I knew is that Dee provides links to articles with value, so whether I acted on the information, it would be advantageous to at least know what was out there, what was being offered.

Supposedly these little gems add "function and flair" to your Facebook pages. Some of the bling that we can add include storefronts, lead generation, and the ability to promote. That last one sparked my interest - as an author, I have books that I would love toget a better handle on promoting.

One of the first things that this article told me was that Facebook apps are also know as Facebook tabs, and that they appear under the cover photo. If the tab is going togo all the way across the cover photo, then it needs to be created within that width, to prevent the appearance of scroll bars on your tab.

It is also recommended that a custom tab cover photo be designed to draw attention tot he tab. The dimensions of the tab cover photo are 111 pixels wide by 74 pixels tall. 

Some tabs will not appear on mobile devices, There is also something called "like-gating", or "fan-gating". To tell you the truth, I don't understand this concept, but what happens is that when placed on a site, your Facebook content is kept hidden until someone clicks on the"like" button. Sneaky, eh! Perhaps not so, as it is used ot good advantage for contests, sweepstakes and the like.

I am not going to go into the eight specific apps - you can click on the link above and see exactly what tghe article has to say. If you are at all interested, it is time well spent! 

Interesting side note: if a page has more than four apps, click on the arrow on the right side of the cover photo's to have them all appear.

I felt that the article offered both pros and cons ...that it was balanced, and realistic. For anyone who uses Facebook for more than superficial chatting, it is worth reading.

(c) 2000 - 2013 Bonnie Cehovet

Reproduction prohibited in all venues without written permission from the author.