Facebook Apps That Work on Facebook Pages

Image via Wikipedia

In my desperate attempt to learn what Facebook Apps had upgraded to compatibility with the new Facebook Pages, I finally went scouring the Apps list myself. I kept in mind applications that would enhance a brand’s company page. I didn’t look at more niche areas like a fun sports app for a sports company page. I tried to make more general selections to serve a wider group of businesses.

Here is a short list that I hope to add to over time – and that will be easier to augment as more programmers catch up.

Slideshare – I like this application on my LinkedIn profile and think Slideshare can be an asset to a Facebook Page.

Social RSS – Brings in RSS feeds and supports both RSS and Atom.

Testimonials – I haven’t tried this one but if you have or use testimonials for your work, you can add this app.

Causes – If your company gets behind social causes, this is a great app to add as long as you’ve been actively recruiting to and supporting your causes.

LinkedIn Contacts – See and share your LinkedIn Contacts but note that it isn’t affiliated officially with LinkedIn. You can also use another app, Share LinkedIn Profile to do just that. Yet another, My LinkedIn Profile, puts a LinkedIn badge on your Page. Using the app Professional Profile, you can sync with your LinkedIn Resume and recommendations.

EventBrite – Publishing and managing events via EventBrite on the Web? You can add this app to your Page.

Ma.gnolia – If you like using Ma.gnolia, you can now add their Facebook app to your page. Personally, I am still trying to get in the habit of using my Delicious account. I’ve seen Chris Brogan use Delicious really well for links to case studies – a great business use of a bookmarking site.

Polls – Add interactive polls to your Page.

Memorable Web Addresses – If you can’t get your direct Facebook URL this weekend on the massive Facebook Username Grab, you can still use this app to simplify your Page’s URL. They show up as www.profile.to/yourname.

Call Me on Skype – We use Skype for Conversify so this is a great app to add to our Page.

Selective Twitter Status – Depending on how you use Twitter versus Facebook, there could be some redundancy in status updates, however, you can select which Tweets should be published to your Page. Just tag your tweets with #fb to post the tweet to your Page as well.

There are also multimedia apps – will cover that in another post!

Apps I’d like to see compatible with Facebook Pages (these are already regular Facebook profile apps):

1. SocialToo

2. Delicious

3. Seesmic

What apps do you use on your Facebook Page?

Dunbar gets networked

The Economist had a superb article (Feb. 28th) on the Dunbar number.

For those unfamiliar with Dunbar, it’s the theoretical maximum number of people that humans can have real relationships with. (See Wikipedia article.)

I’ve always postulated that the Dunbar number would increase with the help of a database to augment our cognitive skills and help us remember. For many years, the database that worked for me was ACT! While I was raising capital for my start-up in the last 90s, I would input memory triggers of conversations I had along with the dates and times that they took place. Most importantly, I would add my friend’s kids names since it is hard enough for me to remember their name, let alone their offspring.

Now, social networks are helping us all remember our relationships. So, does the Dunbar number increase?

According to research done by the The Economist, the answer is: not exactly.

The average number of friends on Facebook is 120 – slightly less than Dunbar, but appropriate since Facebook is not representative of 100% of the population. Where the research gets interesting is how we communicate. People with 120 friends generally respond to 7 of their friends’ postings (men) or 10 of them (women). But people with 500 or so friends respond to 17 (men) or 26 (women) of their friends’ postings.

The author’s conclusion?

The number of casual contacts goes up when using a database, but the number of core friends remains the same.

Read the full article.

How is social networking helping – or hindering – the way you manage your relationships with contacts and friends?

Antibodies living on the Internet

Image via Wikipedia

When at networking events, I introduce myself as working for a social media marketing agency. That comment is typically followed by a look of confusion.

I then explain that I help organizations and brands market using technologies that allow people to socialize, like blogs, social networking sites, virtual worlds and more. More often than I would like, that explanation receives a disdainful, “well we don’t market where people are trashing our brand.”

That typically leads me to reply that people are talking about, even shaping your brand, whether you like it or not and you have a choice: to be part of the conversation, making corrections, if appropriate, or just ignoring it and letting them talk about you.

But tonight’s networking event was different because I met Kevin Singel of Accenture with his brilliant analogy.

Kevin said that people act like antibodies—the white blood cells that are protectors of truth and righteousness. He said that these antibodies will trash brands if the brands lie or act in an inauthentic manner.

The Antibody’s job is to counteract corporate marketing speak.

In that same conversation, Bruce McCoy from The Economist also made me realize that as a social media marketing agency we’re a lot more economically vulnerable than a PR agency or an advertising agency. Both of those types of agencies can obtain any kind of client and it won’t affect their reputation. [An exception to this is a PR consultant friend of mine who had a client that was a porn company and that DID affect his reputation.]

As a social media agency, we can only have clients that value authenticity, transparency, engagement with their audience and “doing the right thing.” That narrows down our playing field, and that’s kind of scary in a down turn!