Use Business Apps to Stand Out on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest
Apps are designed to enhance your visitors’ experience on your Facebook page with engaging games and useful features. You can use apps to share interesting content, recognize and encourage fan participation and provide other value to your community. Explore and add apps from the App Center to find interactive games and social apps that fit your business interests.
Fan of the week Add an extra layer of interaction to your Facebook page by showcasing a "fan of the week". Fans can apply to be picked. Other fans can then vote which fan they think should get the coveted title. The elected person can either be automatically chosen or an admin can make the choice manually. Domino’s Pizza UK asks fans to upload their photos from which they choose “Fan of the Week”. This initiative boosts interaction and motivates followers to share their interesting moments with the brand, in turn providing fresh user-generated content to the Facebook page.
To add this feature to your page, just go to http://apps.facebook.com/fanofthe/ and then choose the page where you will add it. The app will automatically post to your Facebook wall at the same time every week, so do this for the first time at exactly the time you would like it to post going forward.
PostPlanner PostPlanner is an app specifically designed for managing content on Facebook. There are other scheduling tools such as SocialOomph, HootSuite or TweetDeck, but none have the capability to schedule posts with pictures or videos. Another unique aspect to the app is its content discovery engine. You enter keywords that are relevant to your industry and PostPlanner displays recent content that you can sort by popularity (i.e., with the most shares/likes). The tool comes at a cost of $4.95/month to post to pages, but is worth the small price to keep track of your post schedule. Do not forget to check back into the conversation from time to time. PostPlanner also has a white-label version so you can customize the app name and send people who click on it to your website instead of sending them to an application.
Easypromos The easiest way to create promotions and contests on your Facebook page, is a robust, multi-language app that works for any type of business. Plus, the app is fully-compliant with Facebook promotion guidelines.
The following types of campaigns can be designed with Easypromos: 1) Promotions with prizes and sweepstakes 2) Photo, video and text-based contests 3) Discount coupons 4) Promotional codes 5) Pick-your-favorite promotions 6) Surveys and market research All the promotions created in Easypromos are accessible from the mobile devices supported by Facebook’s development platform for mobiles: iPhone, iPad, iPod and Android. Businesses can create Facebook promotions quickly and independently with this app.
Ecwid Retailers can offer an online shopping option on their Facebook profiles by opening storefronts that operate within Facebook. The Ecwid app integrates with PayPal, Google Checkout, Authorize.net and several other payment processing options. It helps you draw attention immediately to your products and services. Ecwid also offers forums and customer support help you become a social e-commerce pro. Here are some key advantages of Ecwid: 1) The app has AJAX everywhere and supports drag-and-drop. 2) It can be easily integrated to any existing site or Facebook profile. 3) It is simple to use and maintain for both store owner and customer. 4) Ecwid is much faster than usual shopping carts. 5) You can get seamless upgrades.
Since Twitter is an important social vehicle to converse, reach out and share your business updates, event news and customer testimonials, the following are some apps that help businesses to take their Twitter game up a notch.
TwitPic TwitPic turns a text-only microblog into a photo sharing service. Simply link your account with Twitter, upload and post pictures without having to access a website in the process.
To use the software, you simply register for a free account with Twitpic. Once your account is created, you can easily upload pictures to your Twitter account from your computer as well as your mobile phone. Twitpic even resizes the images to an appropriate resolution and provides short URLs that allows you to easily fit it into most Twitter posts.
Klout Specifically for Twitter, Klout measures a huge range of criteria and creates Klout Scores to measure your influence via your Twitter account. Klout has the largest consumer base of any influence marketing platform. It empowers marketers to identify and engage with millions of top influencers, increasing earned media and improving brand lift.
Nurph Here's another tool to keep your tweets in check. Nurph lets you create a real-time chat on topic of your choice and then share them with your followers. As Twitter users are limited to 140 characters, trying to provide tech support or hold a meaningful conversation is very difficult.
Nurph aims to provide a simple way of having conversations in more practical ways. Once you log on to Nurph, it automatically creates ad-hoc chat rooms that link directly with existing Twitter accounts. Nurph adopts your Twitter profile design and features username autocomplete to make the transition as seamless as possible.
Pinterest allows businesses to collaborate and to stimulate their audiences by sharing images and visually engaging them. With the growth of smartphones and tablets, more of us are networking socially and consuming content via mobile devices. Here are some Pinterest apps that will help you use this visual social network with mobile devices.
PinPuff PinPuff is a free tool that lets marketers track trends and measure their accounts’ influence, reach and virality on Pinterest, assign Pinfluence scores and assess the monetary values of their pins.
It keeps track of the kind of traffic pins are generating and suggests possible tips/measures to get maximum returns out of Pinterest. It also provides an easy to use platform for businesses, which can be used to create, manage and analyze their Pinterest-related promotions/marketing activities and seamlessly engage Pinfluencers.
Reachli Reachli has a user-friendly dashboard interface. It keeps you updated on your pin schedule, helps you locate like-minded users and un-follow groups. Reachli is a home for creating and sharing engaging media such as photos, videos and links. Its intelligent suite of tools helps businesses to market, advertise and further their content reach across social, mobile and the web.
Pin4Ever Pin4Ever lets you create a backup of your pins on your computer or mobile device by using the Pinterest backup app. It offers other features like:
1) Backup your pins: Takes a backup of your boards or each board individually, including Likes, Followers and Following.
2) Bulk image uploading: Helps you pin multiple images from your local drive or images from the web, including Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and other sites, with an optional time delay between pins.
3) Bulk pin editing: Move, copy, delete and rearrange pins from your boards or any pin you see (you must own the pin in order to move, delete, or rearrange it).
4) Find duplicate pins: Find any duplicate pins and show them side-by-side, so that you can decide which ones you want to keep.
5) Find deleted pins: Find any pins that were deleted from Pinterest after running a second backup. You then have an option to upload them back on Pinterest.
6) Create a pin tool: Design and pin quotes, infographics and announcements by combining images from your local drive, images from the web, as well as build patterns and add colors or text in different fonts, sizes and styles. Which other apps and tools do you use to efficiently manage your brand profile on the three leading social media platforms?
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