Blogging News

If you haven’t noticed yet, you can make some serious money creating Facebook applications. Facebook applications are basically software programs or modules that can be added to any users Facebook profile relatively easily. Applications for Facebook have gained a great deal of popularity in the last few years due to the uniqueness and ease of creating them.
The opportunity with Facebook applications is incredible. All these programs are is simply little snips of computer code that work within Facebook. People have been able to make tens of thousands of dollars in a very short period of time by simply creating very viral Facebook applications. The programmers that create the hard to use, non viral applications are generally the ones that are left around to collect dust.
Be sure to create an application that is creative and can be easily understood by the average Facebook user. Usually the most successful apps are the ones that an average college student with not a large attention span can understand and play with easily and quickly.
I’ve seen Facebook apps sell for five figures very easily simply due to the amount of users and activity the application sees on a daily basis.
The key to having a Facebook application that will be used a lot is creating something that is simple, easy to use, fun, and viral. The most important factor is the application being viral. Now, you may ask , how do I make an application viral? Well, it’s actually quite easy. All you need to do is put yourself in the seat of the user.
What will make the user tell his or her friends about your application? What will make the person want to give it to his or her friends? In my opinion, it needs to be something that really gets into someone’s life.
A new application that is becoming very popular on Facebook is called “Compare.” What it does is it compares each one of your friends to another friend. It will randomly take two of your friends and ask you a question like “Who’s the better kisser?” Once you click the person’s name they are notified they beat someone and have moved up in the leader board. The real success to this application is it gets EVERYONE involved. It’s almost like playing battleship against your friends. The creator of the Compare application was very innovative and smart knowing that he would be able to generate a lot of traffic because of how viral his program is.
Will you make the application that becomes one of the most popular and actively used applications?
Well, I sure hope so. Let’s look at the ones in the top three. Funwall, Super Wall, and Top Friends. These three applications are easy to use, effective, and fun.
If you choose to create an application make sure it is fun and viral and you should do very well. Do not work on creating something so complex that nobody will want to install it. Be smart!!

We have been hearing about the new emerging trends of social media from quite a long time now. Besides other popular web services, Facebook is one of the biggest social networking website so far. Facebook is all about connecting people and providing them the ability to them to share. People can share photos, videos, ideas, links and lots of other things on Facebook. In no time they can meet their friends from workplace, school, college, groups and from anywhere around the world. Facebook is highly popular among high school and college students in particular.

Launched in the year 2004, Facebook is a complete social networking website, founded by Mark Zukerberg, a former Harvard student. With the passage of time, Facebooking has become a complete addiction among youngsters, encouraging them to spend hours on it. Some popular Facebook features include “Status update” that describes the current whereabouts and activity of the user. Another one is “The Wall” which is a space on each user’s profile page that allows friends to post messages for the user to see. Other than this it also includes a “poke” feature that allows one user to send a “poke” to another one, basically “nudging” them to attract their attention.

The platform of Facebook allows anyone, anywhere to built applications. It has grown so wide now that it brings all other social networks on Facebook. One of the most admired applications on Facebook is the Photos application, where users can upload albums of photos, tag friends, and comment on photos. The applications developers at Facebook have been constantly trying to create viral applications that can become popular by a simple word-of-mouth. Facebook incorporates various social applications such as Orkut, LinkedIn, MySpace and some other virally growing applications ranging from “Honesty Box”, “Will you kiss me”, “Rock You” or “Flirtable” to an unlimited number. Facebook also now includes various location and mobile social networking applications in which you can share your location with your friends and let them know what you’re up to or in some other cases the users can vote and win free mobile application and games.

An annoying drawback of Facebook is that it has grown up to vast extent, aiming to become everything to everybody. It has lost its exclusivity by overcrowding people from every race and culture. If we compare it to other social networks, their main objective is to keep themselves restricted to a particular segment such as LinkedIn focusing on business/professional users. One of the biggest disadvantage of Facebook is related to privacy issues where the complete user information (even a lot of intimate information) is published online, making it accessible to strange people and potential stalkers at the click of a button. Facebook can solve these problems by initiating separate closed communities for specific schools and organization using the domain extension of .edu links.

In the end, keeping aside the criticism for a while, we must appreciate the amount of popularity Facebook has attained in a short time. It features all the elements of web 2.0 services which include (sharing, communities, user generated content etc), but keeping its focus on a specific segment and making things less complex for people will help it to become one of the most successful social networking website of future.

Once you have a basic understanding of how Facebook works, your adrenaline may be pumping as you experience the potential of exposing your business to over 40 million people.

 

But before you begin…

 

Marketing via Facebook or any another social network needs to be done strategically, using a proper marketing plan. So many people have destroyed their businesses because they abused these networks. Once you’ve become familiar with the tools described below, take time to outline a plan for yourself.

 

Here are some of the different tools (all free) with which Facebook allows you to promote your business. Using these tools wisely will help your business grow. Misusing them will kill your business and leave you with the reputation of nothing but a spammer. Browse Facebook and the “applications” link to find all of the below:

 

Creating a Group:

 

Anyone on Facebook can start their own group. An excellent way to build a community around your product or service is to create a group representing it. Some of the features that a group has are a discussion board, a “wall,” posted items (great place to post links) and the possibility to upload videos and pictures. When you start building your group, which is very simple to do, you can add your website link, location, contact and any other information you wish. The next step is to invite your personal network to join your group.

 

Joining Other Groups for Marketing Your Business:

 

The groups are one of the most powerful venues that can help you to promote your business. The effective way to do so is to join groups that are relevant to your business. Join those groups and become active in them. If you join and post a message only once, no one will look at you. Instead, participate in the back and forth on the discussion board and post regularly on the walls. One of the most effective ways to get attention is sharing your articles on the discussion board and responding to other people’s questions. In many ways this is like a forum. Once you start participating in these discussion boards, people will respect you and learn to trust you.

 

Pages:

 

Facebook recently launched “Pages,” which is similar to groups. “Pages” allows businesses to establish a brand presence on Facebook. You can add html code, flash files and even Facebook applications to Pages that can help you customize the page better, which you cannot do on groups. People who join your Page are called “Fans” – they become “fans” of your business.

 

Using the Wall:

 

On your profile page you have what’s called “The Wall” – this is where the members of your network can post messages on your profile page. Whenever someone posts something on your wall and whenever you post on friends’ walls, everyone in your network can see it. (Be careful not to post very private messages on a friend’s wall. If you need to do so, you have the option of sending a message to your friend’s Facebook inbox.)

 

Events:

If you are having an event related to you business or a sale at a friend’s house or on Ebay, this is the online place where you would want to post about it. After creating your event, you can invite your network to view and participate (or politely decline).

 

Notes and Photos:

 

These two applications allow you to share articles, blog posts or pictures with your network. You can utilize these applications to discuss your business or share photos of your products. Your friends can publish comments on your postings.

 

Messages:

This is an excellent alternative to using your regular email. With this application you can send personal or group messages to people in your network. The beauty of this application is that you are protected from the possibility of sending inadvertent spam, since Facebook has excellent methods of eliminating that possibility before you can send anything. Just be careful not to email too often.

 

Marketplace:

Marketplace is Facebook’s classifieds listing service. Here you can post a variety of ads related to your business. The marketplace allows you to upload pictures as well. Just take care not to flood the marketplace with your ads, as this will get you deleted from Facebook.

Status:

 

This incredible feature allows you to let your network know what you are doing at any given time. If you have just uploaded new content to your website, added a new product to your product line or what ever it may be.

 

Now that you have received the basics for marketing via Facebook, you are probably thinking, “So every time I post an item or a photo I have to message it to my friends? This will take forever!” If that’s what you’re thinking, this next and final aspect of Facebook that we will discuss will blow your mind:

 

Facebook’s News Feed:

This is our favorite, and this is Facebook’s unique advantage over other social networks. Whenever you log into your Facebook account, the first page that you will see is the news feed. This page gives you all the recent news in your network: updates of what your friends have been doing on Facebook, what groups they have joined, what items they have posted, what videos they have uploaded, whom they’ve added as friends to their network, etc. And just like you can see what your friends are doing, they can see what you are doing. In other words, every time you post something, your whole network will see it. This exposure creates a consciousness of your product or service within your network and beyond.

 

Be sure to use this feature, like all the tools of Facebook, with your integrity. Keep it clean and people will respect you.

As you may know, Facebook is no longer just for friends to keep in touch with each other. So, without any further delays, let’s get started on promoting and earning more money for your business on Facebook! Simply follow the 5 simple steps below.1. Go to the sign-up page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php  (This applies to you only if you don’t have an accoutn yet, which I suspect most you do)2. Choose an appropriate category for your business. This can’t be changed later (if you want to change it, you have to delete that page and start another one), so take the time to choose wisely. Play with the drop-down lists to see the variety of options. Note that you can make a Facebook Page for a single product and there is no limit to the number of Facebook pages you can set up.3. Type in your business or product or brand name and click “Create Page.”4. Enter a short description of your business and a Website URL in the “Add Information To This Page” area. If possible, upload your logo as a photo/image.5. Click on the hyperlink for your business name in the top left corner and click “publish this page.” This step is necessary so that others can see your business profile.ONE IMPORTANT STEP TO MAKE on your new profile page, click “Add to my products” so that you become the first “fan” of your own business. From this, your other “friends” on Facebook will see something on their site like “Andrew Wang is a fan of your business name.” If any of your friends decide to become a friend to your business, then THEIR friends will see a similar message and the “good virus” begins to spread the word about your business, name or brand.One powerful feature I love about Facebook Pages is the ability of the Page Administrator (Yes, that’s YOU) to monetize the Page on Facebook. This can be done through applications (including third party applications), but if you already have the ability to carry out sales transactions on your own Website, simply use a link to send Facebook Page visitors to your sales site.Facebook suggests that you can leverage the effectiveness and viral distribution of your Facebook Page by adding Facebook Social Ads. “Create an ad creative and attach it to stories in News Feed or in the left-hand Ad Space. Social Ads increase the number of friends who will see the story when they visit Facebook, and you can also target the ads to specific demographics.” For more about this, visit this page.You can school yourself more about how to set up and use Facebook Pages by going to the HELP area and see all the most frequently asked questions. Of particular interest if you already have started a Facebook Group, it can be converted into a Facebook Page. See more about this in the FAQ link just mentioned.So, start investing some time out now to learn about the powerful features and potential add-ons to make a Facebook Page an effective piece of your overall marketing plan.Respect,AllurreCEO/Artist/Producer/DesignerLUXLIVIN ENTERTAINMENTP.S For more golden exclusive marketing and money-making tips, come visit http://www.luxlivinonline.com

With all the hype round the big boys in the industry, some of the smaller mobile phones can get overlooked. And that’s a shame when it’s the Three INQ1, a handset best described as the Facebook phone with mobile broadband built in! For such a cheap handset, this stunner does so much!

What makes a Facebook phone?

So, if you’re going to be selling a Facebook phone, what will it be like? What kind of stuff would you expect it to do, and how would it differ from other mobile phones? Well, there are some silly suggestions some could make for a Facebook phone. If only to clear them out the way so you don’t dwell on them when we actually get to the Three INQ1 Facebook phone, I suppose I’d best list some of them here. Imagine a phone that you could throw sheep at people wherever you were, or zombie hug them. No matter where, you’d always be able to annoy your mates, and type stupid pointless comments on their wall. With a Facebook phone, you’re always linked in to your collective group.

Except, that’s not such a silly pipe dream, because the Three INQ1 really is a phone that does things like that, and more, to truly earn the title of ‘Facebook phone’.

Three INQ1 – the Facebook phone cometh

So, what makes this new entry into the world of mobile phones so special? Why is it so cool? Well, put simply, it’s down to communication. Sure, a few mobile phones have let you get on to Facebook but none of them have had the tight integration you see here. So, with the Three INQ1 Facebook phone, it’s integrated down to the level of putting your friends’ statuses in their phonebook entries, so you can instantly see who’s logged in, and available. It evens pulls down a phonebook image from Facebook, too, and you can upload YOUR images straight from the 3MP camera to your Facebook profile! Mind you, it’s also fair to say it’s not JUST a Facebook phone… it’s a Skype phone, and an MSN phone, and just about any communication-method-under-the-sun phone, too.

But the really cool thing is… the Three INQ1 Facebook phone isn’t even just a phone…

Not just a phone… it does mobile broadband too!

Y’see, while the Three INQ1 Facebook phone is exceptionally nice as a mobile phone, it comes with a HSDPA internet connection. And that, my friends, isn’t just for looking at Facebook on the phone itself. Unlike the vast majority of mobile phones on the market, you can also connect it to your laptop, and use it as a USB modem. That’s right, as well as being a superb mobile phone, the Three INQ1 also gives you mobile broadband, letting you get your laptop online, no matter where you are. There aren’t many mobile phones you can say that about! It doesn’t hurt, either, that the Three INQ1 Facebook phone is clad in shiny brushed metal, giving it a sleek, sexy, sliding body that you’ll want to hold and caress. In short, in case you hadn’t guessed, the Three INQ1, the first proper Facebook phone, is ace!