Applications That Build Buzz
A Facebook app is a tool that makes it easier for customers to use your services or buy your products on Facebook.
 | DEFINITION |
App, short for application, is any piece of software added to an electronic device outside of its standard software. The software is almost always downloaded from the internet and not added from a disk, CD, or other external medium.
Understanding How Your Business Can Benefit from Apps
So how can your business use apps? You have lots of different opportunities to get, keep, and satisfy customers using apps.
If you’re a financial institution, your app could make it easier for customers to do transactions; learn about your new products; and, if they are on a smartphone, use a locator to automatically show them the nearest branch of business.
As a retailer, the app could streamline the purchasing process; show customers exclusive deals; and embed pictures, video, and sound to show the products in action.
For a public service like a fire department, a Facebook app could have interactive games that teach fire safety, videos showing proper fire prevention, and opportunities to mail reminders for, say, checking your fire alarm batteries to your Facebook friends.
Types of Apps
You can find more than 500,000 Facebook apps covering a wide variety of content, including the following:
• Web searches
• Music videos
• Family trees
• Celebrity gossip
• Discounts/sales
• TV schedules
• Birthday reminders
• Virtual gift givers
• Calendars
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According to Facebook, users install more than 20 million Facebook apps each day. Opportunities abound to get your app noticed!
In other words, if you name it, there is an app category for it.
The most popular apps are as varied as the types available.
For example, the app Zoosk (www.facebook.com/zooskdating) uses Facebook to connect people on dates. Facebook is the biggest modern social connector on the planet. Zoosk simply takes advantage of it. It has more than 11 million active monthly users.
Daily Horoscope (www.facebook.com/horoscopedaily) has one of the plainest names on Facebook, but it is consistently in the top 20 used apps, with more than 12 million active monthly users.
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The most popular software on Facebook is actually games. Even the highest app, Zoosk, only has a fourth of the audience of the most popular game, CityVille.
Finally, Status Shuffle (see Figure 14.1) collects funny status updates from its users and posts them on its page. It has more than five million active monthly users.
Figure 14.1: The funny app Status Shuffle.
The most popular Facebook apps seem to be all over the place. Matchmakers and humor and horoscopes have little to do with each other.
However, the top 25 apps do share the following characteristics:
• Simplicity
• Clarity
• Appropriateness
These apps are simple. Laugh if you want, but the name “Daily Horoscope” is pure genius. It says exactly what it does and the creator knew that the simple name would be enough for it to sell.
Similarly, Status Shuffle doesn’t add heavy graphics or try to complicate its main goal. Instead, it simply gives users a daily laugh. It’s not complicated, but it works.
Finally, each app is appropriate for its intended audience. Zoosk targets a younger crowd, so its tone, energy, and design are all geared toward it. The audience feels like Zoosk was made specifically for it, which is why it continues to support it so heavily.