You will know that on every brand’s Facebook Page there are four app thumbnails, three of which are customizable and whose positions can be moved. I've marked them 1 through 3 below.
Some companies choose to use this space only to feature their Page’s Like count or Facebook’s 'Notes' and 'Map' apps. These companies are not making the most of their precious Facebook real estate! In this article I'll show examples of 3 better alternatives.
Much like the cover photo, apps are a feature of the Page that capture the attention of Page visitors first. For B2B companies that want to squeeze the most value out of their Facebook Page, there are three essential apps that should live on the Page at all times:
If your B2B company isn’t getting valuable data (like email addresses or customer insights) as a result of your Facebook efforts, you’re missing out on the true benefit of Facebook. One easy way to correct this: Create a newsletter app.
A newsletter app is advantageous for two reasons:
The company ExactTarget has a great example of an effective newsletter app. What makes it effective? It shares the 'Why' first and then the 'What.' It’s okay if you’re a little confused right now. Let me explain.
The core message of ExactTarget’s newsletter app is: 'Sign up for our email list and you will have the competitive advantage.' Then they use easy-to-skim bullet points to list out their 'why'. This is smart. And it’s one of the main reasons their newsletter app is so effective at capturing leads.
I recently saw these insightful statistics on B2B content marketing from a 2014 report from the Content Marketing Institute that highlights the importance of featuring your key content marketing resources. Among the most important points:
If your B2B company is included in the large percentage of companies that are investing in content marketing, a resources app can help give all that work great exposure.
Use a resources app (like the one ShortStack has created below), to house your most-popular, valuable and/or newest resources. On the app, provide direct downloads to PDFs you’ve created, link to must-read blog articles, videos, and much more. You can update your resources app weekly or monthly.
As any content-marketer knows, it’s easy for a really good piece of content to get buried. A resources app solves this problem. It puts your best content, the content that you’ve found produces the most conversions or shares for your B2B business on full display and serves as a sort of index, exposing your 'old' content to new audiences.
I made a jaw-dropping discovery over the holidays: Social media peer recommendations influence more holiday gift purchases than Amazon reviews (according to a study done by Crowdtap).
What this tells me is that social testimonials, aka the online version of word-of-marketing marketing, are powerful.
Peer recommendations are the key driver of purchases. There’s a reason most companies feature testimonials on their websites and Yelp reviews carry so much weight in the eyes of business owners. Testimonials work to inspire the trust and business of people who are not familiar with your company.
Easily incorporate the power of testimonials into your B2B business’s Facebook Page with a featured app. If you have a great product or service, put positive testimonials on full display by showcasing them on a Testimonials app.
The domain hosting company GoDaddy has a good example of a testimonials app. It pulls in reviews from GoDaddy’s customers. There’s also a '25% off' coupon on the app. So if an app visitor likes what they’ve read, they can sign up for GoDaddy on the spot, direct from their Facebook app. Pretty neat, huh?
There you have it, three essential apps every B2B needs on their Page.
If you’re a B2B, let me know in the comments below if you have any Facebook apps that are helping your brand get the most out of your Facebook Page.
Thanks to Chelsea Hejny for sharing her thoughts and opinions in this blog post. Chelsea is a member of the content strategy team at ShortStack, a self-service custom app design tool used to create apps for Facebook Pages, websites and mobile web browsing. ShortStack provides the tools for small businesses, graphic designers, agencies and corporations to create apps with contests and forms, fan gates, product lines and more. You can connect via Twitter or Facebook.
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