Learn how to use Facebook apps to your client's advantage. Also learn about the pitfalls and hurdles you can expect to face as you develop them. Lastly, the presentation goes into how you can take advantage of the newest round of changes to the Facebook Platform. Facebook for Brands

1. FACEBOOK APPS FOR BRANDS The Good, the Bad and the Sometimes Ugly April 7, 2011

2. Overview Integration with Fan Pages Development Lifecycle Challenges Common Mistakes and Misunderstandings Resources ROI Case Studies What’s Next Q&A

3. Overview About me I’ve been working with the Facebook Platform since 2007 Brands that I’ve developed Facebook apps for:

4. Overview Why Facebook?

5. Overview Integration with Fan Pages Development Lifecycle Challenges Common Mistakes and Misunderstandings Resources ROI Case Studies What’s Next Q&A

6. Integration with Fan Pages Entry point to a full featured app

7. Integration with Fan Pages Full experience directly on the Fan Page

8. Overview Integration with Fan Pages Development Lifecycle Challenges Common Mistakes and Misunderstandings Resources ROI Case Studies What’s Next Q&A

9. Development Lifecycle All the steps for creating your other web applications are still there, with a few additional steps

10. Development Lifecycle All the steps for creating your other web applications are still there, with a few additional steps

11. Overview Integration with Fan Pages Development Lifecycle Challenges Common Mistakes and Misunderstandings Resources ROI Case Studies What’s Next Q&A

12. Challenges You’re playing in someone else’s playground Know the Facebook Platform Policies http://developers.facebook.com/policy/ Abusing the API can lead to your app being suspended or removed Too many users marking your app content as spam can cause Facebook to display your content less frequently http://www.flickr.com/photos/jemstone/51342156/

13. Challenges When Facebook experiences problems, you experience problems The Facebook Platform is constantly evolving, like Facebook itself. This is a good thing, but can be problematic for Facebook apps that don’t continue to evolve themselves Facebook developers are constantly updating their codebase on a regular basis, every new day brings potential for a bug to be introduced into the system Facebook developers have a lot to deal with, it’s not realistic to believe that the issue causing your promotion to not function properly is as high of a priority for them as it is for you or your client Be sure to provide ample time for debugging issues. Many times you first have to figure out if something is an issue on your end or theirs before you can start on a solution For contests, make sure to word legal in a way that covers you if technical issues with Facebook prevents you from allowing users to register at the specified start time

14. Overview Integration with Fan Pages Development Lifecycle Challenges Common Mistakes and Misunderstandings Resources ROI Case Studies What’s Next Q&A

17. Use your Fan Page

18. Use your existing web properties to promote it

19. Seed your app

21. Often times there are cheaper and more efficient ways to achieve what you’re trying to do

22. What you see today from other Facebook apps aren’t guaranteed tomorrow. Facebook can and will deprecate existing functionality as they move forward. (e.g. app notifications)

23. Your developers can inform you of new sharing opportunities and tools that recently became available

24. They can help you identify optimal integration points for Facebook specific featuresPrompt your visitors for permissions only if you need them. There is significant drop-off at authorization prompts Allocate a maintenance budget for updates

25. Overview Integration with Fan Pages Development Lifecycle Challenges Common Mistakes and Misunderstandings Resources ROI Case Studies What’s Next Q&A

26. Resources Facebook Developer Documentation Documentation has greatly improved within the last few months Not just for developers, contains general overviews and explanations on how things work for those who want to know more http://developers.facebook.com/docs/

27. Resources Forums Quickest way to get an answer to a problem you’re having There’s a good chance that other people are experiencing the same issues as you are, many solutions and workarounds can be found here http://forum.developers.facebook.net/

28. Resources Issue Trackers If something was working before but all of a sudden broken, this is the first place to go Many times it’s not enough that something “should” work, check here to make sure it’s not functionality they don’t (or plan to) support http://developers.facebook.com/live_status/ http://bugs.developers.facebook.net/

29. Overview Integration with Fan Pages Development Lifecycle Challenges Common Mistakes and Misunderstandings Resources ROI Case Studies What’s Next Q&A

30. ROI Facebook Insights Available to developers and administrators of the app http://www.facebook.com/insights

31. ROI Third Party Analytics Use third party tracking tags as you would for your other websites With the recent move to iFrame Fan Page tabs, you can now also track user visits and activity within your Fan Page also Track and differentiate conversions from your Fan Page and websites

32. Overview Integration with Fan Pages Development Lifecycle Challenges Common Mistakes and Misunderstandings Resources ROI Case Studies What’s Next Q&A

33. Case Studies People like chances to win

34. Case Studies People like love free stuff

35. Case Studies People like deals

36. Overview Integration with Fan Pages Development Lifecycle Challenges Common Mistakes and Misunderstandings Resources ROI Case Studies What’s Next Q&A

37. What’s Next iFrame apps for Fan Pages are a big deal You now have much more flexibility in what you can do on your Fan Page. The only major restriction now is the real estate you have to work with It’s now possible to track tab usage on your Fan Page With FBML apps, Flash content and videos had to be clicked by the user to start playing

38. What’s Next Less work for the user is good for everybody

39. Overview Integration with Fan Pages Development Lifecycle Challenges Common Mistakes and Misunderstandings Resources ROI Case Studies What’s Next Q&A

40. THANKS FOR LISTENING Mike Dang Visit: www.mikedang.com Email: me@mikedang.com Twitter: @mikedang