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Facebook and iTunes Applications – How You Can Use Them to Grow Your Business

Guest post by: Zeke Camusio

Article Overview: The following tips will show you how to use Facebook and iTunes applications to promote and grow your business.

Facebook and iTunes Applications – How You Can Use Them to Grow Your Business

Facebook and iTunes applications make it easy to promote and grow your business. Even though Facebook and iTunes already have ready-to-use applications, companies also have the option to create their own unique applications. There are thousands of applications you can create, but you need to make sure these applications easy to use and make sense. Think strategically when creating applications.

Here are some helpful tips to think about when developing new applications:

• Relevant - If users don't understand HOW your application ties back to your products and services, they won't use your application. Make your application RELEVANT to your industry/business. Research your target markets and appeal to your audience/niche. What do they WANT and will they actually USE the application?
• Fast, Easy Communication - Applications promote your business QUICKLY on a social networking level. Users are only interested in applications that allow them to communicate/network with others quickly and easily.
• Value-Packed Information - When creating applications for your business, remember to think VALUE. You need to give something back to users with your applications - address problems and answers people's questions. People won't use an application that doesn't help or educate them.
• Be Respectful - Make your applications secure. Remember to respect users' privacy. Allow people to choose ONLY what they want to share with others- this is how you earn their respect and trust. Users won't add your application if they think their private contact information could be shared or used.
• Well-Designed - The most frustrating thing for a user is to attempt to use an application that is poorly designed and isn't easy to navigate. Applications need to load quickly. Make your application clean and user friendly. People won't use the application if they can't "intuitively" figure out how to use it.

When you create applications, you need to think about how it's going to be used by people and how well does it represent your company/industry. How will your application brand your company and generate a social "buzz" FAST?

For example, Timberland created the Earthfinders Facebook application. This application allows users to pass along virtual plants or trees to friends. Timberland is making an environmental stand which backs up their company's "green" branding.

The application has already drawn over 50,000 users-it's unique and appeals to people who care about the environment. This is an excellent example of how an application has taken off quickly in the social media world while giving a company FAST name recognition!

Take a tip from Timberland and think outside the box. Research other social networking sites besides Facebook and iTunes (i.e. MySpace, etc). Check out different applications and notice which applications are popular - do people like quizzes more than games? Would social campaigns work better for your company?

Here are a few ideas to get you started.

• Games
• Quizzes
• Social Campaigns/Brand Awareness
• "Poke Friends" applications
• Audio, video and music (downloads/free software)
• News/ sports and entertainment

How to Promote Applications

• Send out press releases/articles announcing new applications
• Blast out direct marketing/email campaigns to Facebook and iTunes users. If you have the budget, run banner ads.
• Cross promote on other social networking sites/groups (besides Facebook and iTunes), blogs, and forums - target appropriate audiences.
• Build upon the popularity of your previous applications - as one application grows in popularity, continue to add more applications and feed off that "buzz" generated by your initial application.

Hire a Pro Developer

Leave it to the pros when designing your applications for Facebook and iTunes. You can find a developer by searching freelance sites such as Elance or oDesk. These are "bidding" freelance sites so be careful when hiring from these sites. Check credentials to make sure developers are legitimate and know what they are doing.

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Article Tags: address problems, audience, business research, facebook, helpful tips, industry business, itunes, level users, li li, network with others, networking level, niche, respect users, social networking, target markets, ties, ul



Related Forum Posts
Re: Traffic! How do you get it? - Hi, you can increase traffic through social media site Facebook and twitter. When you are creating a Facebook fan page, create attractive welcome page and add as many friends as you can then communicate with your friends. Post comment for your friends post like their status etc and just improve your communication and ask them to like your fan page. Run Facebook Applications like network blog and connect it to twitter.
Re: Social Networking and You - Great Article! Certainly, you can increase traffic through social media site Facebook and twitter. When you are creating a Facebook fan page, create attractive welcome page and add as many friends as you can then communicate with your friends. Post comment for your friends post like their status etc and just improve your communication and ask them to like your fan page. Run Facebook Applications like network blog and connect it to twitter.
Re: Social Media Marketing - For B2B Products & Services - Great Post!! I also agreed that because now days you can increase traffic through social media site Facebook and twitter. When you are creating a Facebook fan page, create attractive welcome page and add as many friends as you can then communicate with your friends. Post comment for your friends post like their status etc and just improve your communication and ask them to like your fan page. Run Facebook Applications like network blog and connect it to twitter.
Re: Are you getting an iPad 2? - Hi GT, The lineups at the Apple store were crazy which is why I went to FutureShop! Regarding iTunes - you only need it if you want to sync files between your iPad and computer. I am using thie DropBox app for that so even though I installed iTunes I have not used it yet!
Re: Twitter vs Facebook - I use Facebook pages for Business and rarely ever use Twitter. I hace lost count of the no. of Hotels that I have visited, regarding their marketing campaigns, that may have 5k Facebook Fans and only 100 followers on Twitter. It is a lot more difficult to engage with people on Twitter and thus harder to gain traction. If you are a business like Nike, then Twitter is great, but if you are an SME, then focus on Facebook or LinkedIn (if you are providing a professional service.) You can always have your Facebook feed directly in to Twitter, so you can have a presence on both, but do the work on one. Also check out ping.fm for managing campaigns - it is a free tool, and a great time saver.


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