5 of the Best Facebook Fan Page Apps for User Engagement
If you have or manage a Facebook fan page, one of your biggest challenges is probably maintaining user engagement. It’s not that hard to get people to click “Like,” but it can be very difficult to get people to come back, and even more difficult to get people to participate.
There are a lot of great apps available to help you improve the user experience, so I thought I’d share a few of my own favorites. Here are my top five … what fan page apps top your list?
NetworkedBlogs
One of my favorite Facebook apps for fan pages and personal profiles is NetworkedBlogs. If you have a blog and want to add the feed to you page, this is one of the best ways to do it. It’s fairly simple to setup, and allows you to import your feed directory to your page. The app also adds your blog to a directory of blogs organized by topic and geographical locations.
NutshellMail
Last week, I wrote about how NutshellMail is a gem when it comes to managing the “noise” of social media and zeroing in on only the information you want to keep track of. One of the best features of NutshellMail is the Facebook email newsletter feature. Adding this app to your fan page will create an opt-in area where fans can sign up to get automatic notifications of fan page activity.
Static FBML
If you had to pick only one app for your fan page, Static FBML is the one to pick. Static FBML is an app that was developed by Facebook to allow users to add advanced functionality to their pages using JavaScript, CSS, HTML and FBML (Facebook Markup Language). While it’s not exactly like coding a non-Facebook site, you have a lot of flexibility for adding some great user-focused content, such as a Welcome page, a contact form or other opt-in and even a mini web site.
If you have a Twitter profile that relates to your fan page, you can easily add the Twitter app so everything you post on your fan page (or just the items you select) are automatically shared on your Twitter account. This is a great way to create a crossover that expands your reach in both networks.
YouTube Video Box
I talked about the power of online videos in a previous post. If you use videos to enrich the user experience on your web site or blog, you can carry that engagement over to your fan page with YouTube Video Box. This app integrates your YouTube account directly into your Facebook fan page, and allows you to add videos, search, and make it easy for fans to watch and share your videos.
