There are two companies we can blame for creating time wasting “apps” and ecosystems on the social web that distract us from the serious matters at hand every day.

It is not hard to guess…. Apple and Facebook!

In fact walking down the street is becoming more dangerous as people with their earphones plugged in and their eyes peering at their 3.5 inch phone screens are very likely to walk into you, or an immoveable or fast moving object.

Facebook “Apps” have become prolific in the last 2 years.

• On average, people on Facebook install apps more than 20 million times every day
• Every month, more than 500 million people use an app on Facebook or experience the Facebook platform on other websites
• More than 7 million apps and websites are integrated with Facebook

Video and Photo Apps Grow in Popularity

Video apps such as “Vevo for Artists” are popular, along with image and photo apps such as Instagram continue to reveal the power and importance of multi-media on the Facebook social network.

Membership sites and daily deal online stores such as Living Social and Groupon are also creating apps for embedding their brand and websites on Facebook and keeping their daily offers in front of their subscribers from places they never leave!…”Facebook”

Most of the Facebook apps are entertainment focused but along with these frivolous but fun distractions, serious business and marketing apps have emerged.

Apps can be used for creating custom tabs such as a “Welcome” page for your brands Facebook page, provide a complete environment to market your bands music or place your online store in Facebook.

5 Top Facebook Business Apps

Most of the top apps on Facebook are for games and entertainment but amongst the top 500 apps there are a few that are some great tools to optimize your Facebook marketing.

1. PM Custom Welcome Page “App” by PageModo

Pagemodo created a Facebook app that makes it easy for brands to create a much more visually and user friendly “Welcome” page tab as well as other tabs with website type functions.

This Facebook app has as its bragging rights:

• 300,000 daily active users (DAU)
• 6.5 million monthly active users (MAU)

Their description of what the app can do “Create stunning and engaging custom welcome pages and tabs for your business page on Facebook. No coding or FBML required!”

Features

Other features include the following tabs functions

• Welcome tab
• Video
• Twitter feed
• Coupon
• Contact form
• Map and location

The “App” also includes the “Like” gate function as part of its feature set (see screen shot below)

2.  Band Profile “App” by ReverbNation

ReverbNation.com is the leading online music-marketing platform used by over 1,721,000 artists — plus managers, record labels, and venues — to grow their reach, influence, and business across the internet. ReverbNation.com provides free and affordable solutions to individual artists and the music industry professionals that support them in the areas of web promotion, fan-relationship management, digital distribution, social-media marketing, direct-to-fan e-commerce, fan-behavior measurement, sentiment tracking, web-site hosting, and concert booking and promotion.

The Band Profile Facebook app that they have created to complement their web based platform is one of the top musician and artist apps on Facebook

Their bragging rights are that there are currently

• 621,000 daily active users (DAU)
• 12.3 million monthly active users (MAU)

Their description of what the app can do “Promote your band with this application for musicians and artists. Upload music, photos, show schedules, and more. Customize your page and get a Free Music player for all types of bands, hip-hop, rock, alternative, pop, blues, country, and more!”

Features include

• Social Functions
• Mailing list feature
• Download songs
• About
• Videos
• Recommendation
• Fans
• Show schedule
• Press
• Photos

Example of Band Profile Facebook App

3.Causes Facebook “App”

The Facebook  ”Causes” app allows non-profits and supporters to set-up campaigns through Facebook’s “Causes” app. Non-profits can create a page and accept donations directly, while everyday users can set up a page in support of non-profits already on and approved by Facebook

Their bragging rights are that there are currently:

• 100,000 daily active users (DAU)
• 2.3 million monthly active users (MAU)

Their description of  the app: “Causes strives to empower people to have a positive impact on the world“.

4. Contest “App”

This “Contest” Facebook app by Wildfire Interactive can create contests for Fan Pages that enables companies & agencies to easily create & launch branded contests within minutes on Facebook Fan Pages. The following contest formats are available:

• Photo contests
• Video contests
• Design contests
• Logo contests
• Essay-based contests

Their bragging rights are that there are currently

• 30,000 daily active users (DAU)
• 600,000 monthly active users (MAU)

Case Study

Chocolate Bakery wanted to increase awareness but to also gain fans– it chose to use a sweepstakes with a cake as the ultimate winner’s reward. This type of promotion is engaging for users because of the chance to win a compelling prize. It also motivated them to “Fan” Chocolate Bakery in hopes of keeping up with future giveaways of the same sort.

Results

By running a standard sweepstakes, Chocolate Bakery received 264 sweepstakes submissions over 7 days and the buzz around the free cake grew the Fan Page Fans by about 250 fans over the two week promotion.

5. Market Place Facebook “App”

Facebook first introduced the Marketplace application on Facebook Platform in May 2007 as a way for people to post classified listings on the site. Marketplace helps people buy and sell furniture and household items in a trusted environment. Late last year, Facebook turned to Oodle for its expertise in online classifieds, and Oodle has built an entirely new version of Marketplace focused on giving people a place to buy, sell or give things away to the people they know.

Their bragging rights are that there are currently

• 70,000 daily active users (DAU)
• 1.4 million monthly active users (MAU)

Their description of the app: “Buy, sell, and trade with your Friends, Friends-of-Friends, and the Facebook Community”

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Image by Steve Rhodes