Written by ContentPowered.com
Facebook is often used as part of a comprehensive marketing plan, driving users from around the Internet to one central website, where they can visit a shop and purchase items. Very few businesses seem to know or utilize the fact that Facebook allows you to sell directly through the site as well. In fact, you could run a successful web business entirely on Facebook; you don’t need an external site to sell your products.
If you’re in this situation, you should make use of some apps to help make Facebook a more robust platform for eCommerce. Facebook may be useful, but it’s limited compared to your own shop. These apps can help you fix that.
1. Ecwid
Ecwid is an odd name for a great little app. What this app does is established a web store on your Facebook page. You don’t need hosting. You don’t need an independent payment processor. You don’t need third party support. It works automatically with a whole range of payment processors, including Paypal and wire transfers. It also supports a bunch of possible shipping options, from UPS to the Russian Post. The free version is somewhat limited, at a maximum of 10 products at a time, but you can multiply that by a factor of 10 for a $15 monthly fee. Ecwid also has even more robust and expensive plans, and you can upgrade at any time.
2. IFrame Apps
IFrame Apps is a service that offers a range of tab apps on Facebook, including a store, a newsletter tab, a livestream service and of course the titular iframe embed tab. The iframe tab allows you to create a tab app that leads to a website of your choice. This, of course, requires that you have website of your own that has content you want featured on Facebook, but not through the normal post channels.
One thing to note is that several of the IFrame App tab apps mention like gates as a compelling feature. Facebook has recently banned the use of like gates, and has required that all apps using them comply with removing them shortly. Don’t go into adopting one of these apps hoping to use like gates a month or two from now.
3. Landable
Landable allows you to create a custom landing page app for your Facebook page. You can use this app – much like the one in the Landable link – to create a customized landing tab for your Facebook page. Now, when a user visits your page, they aren’t automatically taken to the landing app. This isn’t for users organically clicking to your page. Rather, you can use it as a landing page for any advertising you run, be it through Google AdWords, Facebook’s own PPC system or another advertiser.
4. Any Woobox App
Woobox is one of the largest app creators for Facebook active today. They have nearly two dozen Facebook apps for all sorts of purposes. You can create sweepstakes, contests, instant win events and prize claims. You can integrate with YouTube, Pinterest and Twitter. You can create group deals like Groupon, create video contests and make a poll with options beyond what Facebook allows by default. Some of these apps are free to use. Most of them require a fee to use, with the fee scaling depending on your number of followers. If you’ve avoided buying followers, this is where you’ll see the savings. For a monthly fee of $29, you can create an unlimited number of promotions with any of their apps as long as you have fewer than 20,000 fans. It’s perfect for a small business.
5. Extended Info
This particular app just allows you to expand the functionality of Facebook by displaying a wider range of information on your page. You can expand your about section, add multiple contacts, add more personal information, expand any informative section or even use it for a completely new purpose. For more details on what you can do with the Extended Info app, check their informative FAQ here, right on Facebook itself.
6. AWeber
AWeber is a program that manages your email contact list and newsletter production setup. You can create newsletters based on over 600 templates, or you can create a custom newsletter yourself. You can segment your audience and schedule messages to be sent out at different times, whenever you need them to send. The point of the AWeber Facebook app, however, is to create a newsletter opt-in form. The app allows you to create and customize a form, which in turn allows you to harvest new newsletter registrants from your audience.
7. GetResponse
The GetResponse app combines some of the best features of both AWeber and apps like Landable. It allows you to create and publish customized landing pages on Facebook without the need for editing HTML or hosting. It even works on mobile automatically. You can also create and analyze your newsletter from within the app, create opt-in forms and generally manage your entire contact and media scheme from one place. You can try it free, but you’ll need to subscribe to a price that depends on your number of subscribers.
8. Fan of the Week
One potent source of engagement on Facebook is featuring your fans. Create weekly or monthly contests and build a featured page around the winners. This gives your audience a theme to look forward to each week or month. It also gives you a ready source of engagement from users looking to get their time in the spotlight. You can use this app to create a special featured page for each winner, with as much or as little detail as you want. Because it’s a tab app, it makes your users click around to explore and see if they’re featured.
9. Booshaka
Booshaka (now Sprinklr) is an interesting app that analyzes your audience in a number of ways. Some things it can tell you:
- When a user joins your site.
- When a user has stopped visiting your site.
- When two fans are very similar.
- When a fan similar to your highly engaged fans joins.
- When a particular fan is an outstanding brand advocate.
All of this allows you to gather deep insight into your individual fans, so you can praise and promote those who are the biggest and best influencers for your brand. You can also see when some users are dormant, and take the opportunity to target them with some encouraging advertising.
10. UserVoice
The UserVoice app is an app dedicated to feedback. Think of it like a suggestion box taped to the edge of your Facebook page. You can make requests of your users and direct them towards the app, to gather feedback that can help you engage with your users. It can also help you test and adjust your strategies, develop new product ideas and learn about – and eventually fix – bugs with your products. Normally customer insight this valuable would have to be aggregated from a dozen different sources.
