28 Oct, 2011

Facebook App Review: Structuring Apps for Continued Customer Engagement

Posted by Brianna Littlepage | Categories: Social Acquisition, Facebook, Social CRM | Tags: Facebook Apps, Facebook Fan Acquisition

Ever wonder what makes a Facebook app successful? What is the secret sauce that marketers add to turn a static page app into an engaging experience that expands customer reach and increases brand engagement?  We think the secret sauce lies in an integrated fan acquisition approach that structures FB apps to capture customer insights to inform remarketing, along with fan growth and brand activation.

Not every campaign is a guaranteed success, but we think there are few ingredients Facebook apps should have to position for success.  Let’s start by evaluating a very good FB app from Expedia -- FriendTrip app that launched April 1st, 2011.

Facebook Acquisition App

This acquisition focused app was very successful in growing Expedia’s fan base. It attracted over 1 million fans within 5 weeks - a 750% increase in fans.

What made it successful?

  1. Offered a compelling reason to engage – Offered a dream trip with you and 5 of your friends, with over a million dollars in prizes
  2. Promoted network sharing as functional requirement for app – Entry required fan to bring together 5 Facebook friends to build their dream trip. Created a compelling reason to invite friends to participate.

What could make it better?

We aren’t denying that 750% fan increase in five weeks is a true success.  We just want to challenge marketers to think about building FB apps to capture data and inform downstream consumer insights and remarketing.  Fan growth alone is good, fan growth to capture leads and deliver customer level insights, define fan value, and identify an ROI is a true success.

How do we do that? We like to think of Facebook apps as just one part of a Smart Fan Acquisition approach in social. Consider the following elements in developing an app:

  1. Smart Media – acquisition targeted at high value prospects across media and CRM channels.
  2. Connected Facebook Apps – Facebook apps that are structured to collect customer data and enable customer insights about fan engagement, value and ROI.
  3. Data Integration– integrate social data with customer data to determine deeper understanding of who is engaging and how this changes your fan and customer profile
  4. Targeted Contact Strategy – integrated CRM contact strategy that delivers relevant targeted messages (email, social, etc.) to engaged fan base.

Facebook apps are evolving in sophistication, but complexity does not always equal success, instead marketers should be focusing on delivering an integrated campaign that captures valuable consumer insights to guide future marketing efforts.

Before building your next app, ask yourself:

  • Who is my target audience (qualified, high value prospects) and how do I reach them?
  • What is the most engaging app strategy for that audience your audience?
  • What insights do I want to achieve from this campaign?
  • How will I capture data to build my connected fan base?
  • How will I integrated fan insights with customer insights to understand value, ROI, etc.?

Once you’ve answered those questions, only then should you ask – ‘what will the design look like?’

Think Business Objectives, Insights, Functionality, then Design.