Advertising on Facebook continues to get more competitive and expensive as marketers tap into this audience.

Facebook applications offer another method to promote your brand, but offer a different set of challenge.

You have to create an app that creates value and interest for the Facebook community.

If you can do that, your Facebook app can bring you several fantastic benefits.

But what are these benefits? Here below are five advantages to a Facebook app.

Social Growth

It can be tiring marketing a website. It costs money, time, and effort. But if you can get social growth, you can get others to do your marketing for free. When you

have a great app that people love and enjoy, which involves their friends, you are having social networking work for you. This can be a tremendous advantage to a Facebook app.

Viral Growth

Facebook has 850 million users. The audience is clearly there.

If your Facebook app has value behind it, it can take off. It is extremely easy for Facebook users to install an app – and if your app succeeds in satisfying users, and there is a viral attribute to it, the sky really is the limit.

So, if you can get something going on Facebook, your app can grow bigger and bigger on its own.

Search Engine Optimization

Search engines continue to factor in social signals into their algorithms. By getting users to mention your website on the social web, as well as link to your site, search engines will take notice.

Search engines want authority, and users posting a link to your site on social media is a vote of confidence from users, and that is an action that the engines like to see.

So your Facebook app can actually help you in the search engines. Remember, the less you rely on search engines for traffic, the better you usually do in search engines!

Branding

Facebook is one of the most recognized brands on the planet, and by getting the word out about your product or service through a Facebook app, it will become a great branding exercise for you.

If users see your offering on Facebook in a good light, then it can extend to the way they perceive your brand once they get to your site.

Great Reporting

Facebook offers fantastic free reporting for app developers.  You are able to get insights into how many active users your app has, along with how much content is being shared by those users.

You can also see how the feedback per share is performing which helps you and Facebook to determine how well your app is received by the Facebook community. There is also other performance data including the amount of application programming interface calls you are making, along with what the average API request time is.

So, you could say that it is still relatively early in the days of Facebook. The company has yet to get public. So, while you may think it is too late to hop on board and make a Facebook app, it isn’t.

Guest writer Evan Britton is president of ResourceWebs.

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