FBInsider

Archive for April, 2008

(This is the 4th part of a 4 part article, you can read the part 1 here, part 2 here, and part 3 here)

Ask Politely.

So far you’ve introduced your app successfully to users, they’re actively using your app, but your user base isn’t growing. As simple as this could be, just ask them politely to spread the word. I’ve seen this done in numerous methods, but I’m going to explain them in a more general sense. The most common methods to spread the word about your app is to include an “Invite Friends” feature from within your app. I think this should be a mandatory feature. There is no good reason not to have this. Using FBML this component can be built with only a couple lines of code. If your app doesn’t have this, add it.

The hardest part about asking your users to share the word is come off as obtrusive or annoying. If you’re constantly pushing them to invite friends after every action they perform they’ll quickly become annoyed. As easy as it is to create the invite friends feature, it’s just as easy to push users away from using it. Currently Facebook only allows users to invite 20 friends to a particular app within a 24 hour period. Don’t let this frighten you. There are other methods of sharing your app with hundreds of users without coming off as intruding or needy. I think the proper use of Facebook notifications can spread the word just as effective, if not more effective as invites. When a user performs an action that interacts with another user, send a notification to that user. Similar to the signature Facebook poke, if you poke a user, notify them they’ve been poked. Next give them the option to poke them back. Naturally if they do not have that app installed it will take them through the installation process before they can poke back. You’ve just effectively added a new user to your app. Currently there are no limits to how many notifications you can send out, so utilize this, but do it wisely. With anything that’s limitless, there is a certain line of abuse. You do not want to cross this line. Using notifications properly will not only increase your user base, but it will also keep your users active.

Another very important feature to making your app noticeable is the use of mini-feeds and news feeds. In FBML you can post things to your user’s mini-feed. This is important on two levels. First, when you post it to the user’s mini-feed any one that views their profile page will see their mini-feed. If your app has entries in their mini-feed they will be visible to the viewing user. The mini-feed can contain text, links, and images. Utilize this to the fullest by including words, links and images that stick out from the rest of the feeds. They click it, and then you’ve successfully enticed them. The next important use of the mini-feed is the newsfeed. The newsfeed is a “smart” aggregator of all the mini-feeds of the current user’s friends. When a user logs in to Facebook they are immediately viewing the newsfeed. This newsfeed includes entries from all of their friend’s mini-feeds. The goal behind this is to get your mini-feed posts to show up in other users newsfeeds. This can be done in a few ways, but the two main ways I see this successfully work is repetition and mass action. Repetition is when users are using the application over and over again, which is posting very similar mini-feeds. Mass action is when numerous users are performing the same action; the number of users gets tallied up and posted as a newsfeed. No matter how you try to get content into users’ newsfeeds, it starts with posting entries to the mini-feed.

The use of notifications and mini-feed posts are key roles in increasing your user base. These are indirect, polite ways of asking your user to share your app with other users. If you’ve successfully introduced your app and made the user active, then there is no reason why they shouldn’t share your app with their friends. Having said that, you don’t want to beg them to share with their friends. These ideas are the polite way to ask your users to share. In turn you’ll increase your user base and you’ll have an application that users will use and be more than willing to spread the word with their friends, just by asking politely.

Concluding Thoughts

After you’ve successfully developed an application that the users love and enjoy, it is only proper to think of a monetization strategy. Using Google Adsense is the simplest from to capitalize on your application, but be creative and specific to where you place your ads. Don’t overpower your app with ads either. There are also ways to offer your users products and/or services that completely integrate with your application. Using referral codes towards content that the users are interested in, work well. If your application becomes highly successful you could also sell space within your applications to up and coming application developers. These are common, simple practices that can help you generate a profit from your Facebook application. If anything, you app could be bought out by a larger company, simply because of your large list of loyal users you’ve successfully accumulated.

Facebook applications are a new realm for developers. You are given the privilege to use Facebook’s large network as leverage towards an idea of your own. With this kind of power there is a lot of room for abuse. Controlling the actions from within your application is very important to making it a successful Facebook application. The users of Facebook built the network and respecting the users is the number one idea you must keep in mind. Create an application for the users and in turn the users will create a successful business for you. The perfect Facebook application.