As of 13 May 2009, there were 80,585 applications constructed on Facebook, with hundreds being added each day. The 3 most active applications were Living Social, Rock You Live and Movies respectively. These successfully viral applications on Facebook, all bore a common hallmark, which is they were built upon an architecture of social entertainment.
An application not only creates an element of fun and gets users involved with your brand, it’s also a great driver in generating traffic to your site. Best of all, it is achieves excellent cost efficiency with the results it can produce.
Here are some tips to creating an awesome application that will hopefully plaster the walls of users who would readily adopt your application very soon!
Application Type
First and foremost, you’ll have to decide on the type of application that suits best: web or desktop depending on whether you want the user to download it or use it only on the web.
Application Title
An interesting title will stick in people’s minds when they talk about and recommend applications to their friends. Come up with one that is descriptive, memorable and sets your application apart.
Application Description
Just as important is the description of your application. Make use of convincing copy that describes the highlights of your application to entice the user to add it.
Newsfeeds
Live News Feeds literally feed updates of other users on a member’s home page, and this is an excellent way to get people to notice your application. Designing your application to publish News Feeds can vastly increase the presence of your application.
Choose only interesting and exciting events to broadcast, and not just everything. Decide on the title, body and images of your News Feed and work around with the text and image limits to produce a front page worthy feed!
Application Icon
A 16 X 16 icon size on the application menu only allows for a simple one, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be memorable. Pick an image that users can identify you by.
With a more generous 64 X 64 icon specification for the product category, you have more space to create a graphic icon that best represents your application. Remember that an inviting visual is just as important in trying to attract users!
Requests/Invitations
A fun application users enjoy will have the ability to work its own magic when users invite their friends to use your application. This is an excellent way in which your application can gain popularity. However, users cannot send more than 20 requests or invitations per day for each application.
Notifications
Notifications, sent in response to application activity, is a way in which you can maintain a relationship with your users. This is another way you can entice new users to adopt your application; use action-oriented words that will encourage a response from other users to click on your application.
