What does it take to become a sustainable Facebook app?
Story byAyelet Noff
Ayelet Noff is the Founder and CEO of PR Firm SlicedBrand , a global PR agency headquartered in Europe. Ayelet has 20 years of experience in(show all)Ayelet Noffis the Founder and CEO of PR FirmSlicedBrand, a global PR agency headquartered in Europe. Ayelet has 20 years of experience in public relations and marketing. She has successfully led the PR activities of over a thousand technology companies in various fields, including AI, healthtech, blockchain, mobile, cybersecurity, fintech, lifestyle, and many more.
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Identity Formation / Social Comparison 44%
These apps allow Facebook users to display more personal information about themselves affecting how others perceive them and receiving feedback from others about how they are perceived. This category can be divided into a few sub-categories:
Flirting Games
This is the largest category of popular Facebook apps. Examples includeflirtable,are you interested,Likeness. Asi points out that these interactions trivialize a behaviour which in the offline social world would be perceived as overly blatant. This is probably the reason why these apps are so popular online. They allow us to interact with others in ways that are impossible in real life. For example, apps likefriends for sale(13% active users) andowned(19%) allow users to buy, refund friends and actually put a price tag on their worth. These types of apps are the latest hot thing on Facebook.
Asi also indicates that Facebook is on its way to becoming the largest dating site in the world. He writes:
This should definitely serve as food for thought for dating sites that currently do not offer a Facebook app or for those entrepreneurs who are thinking of opening up a dating site.
Self presentations tools
These apps allow users to display to the world who they are. These tools can be divided into two sub-categories. The first sub-category:
Funny “virtual pub games”
Examples of these apps include:what’s your stripper name?which cartoon are you?what kind of drunk are you?. This is the second most popular category of facebook apps. These apps usually have a low percentage of active users because once you’ve figured out what you are, that’s it, you’re done, and the app offers you no further value. Yet as we see these apps are still very popular, thus we will probably continue to see more of them uploaded in the future.
The second sub category is
Hobbies/interests
These apps seem to be more sustainable than the previous because as people we nurture our hobbies on a continuous basis. Examples of such apps are:Films(5%),music(3%),Dogbook(3%).
Phatic interactions / games 39%
These apps allow users to interact with friends without the need to say anything meaningful. Pokes, hugs, kisses, zombies, are examples of these sorts of interactions. More recently longer-type phatic interactions apps have also become quite popular.
Games
Games apps usually have a higher percentage of active users. Poker for example has 8% active users, Chess 12%. Scraboulus has the highest number of active users (22%). Asi adds that since games have high durability, they make for very sustainable Facebook apps:
Tools / extensions / social management 17%
These apps serve as tools allowing users to better manage their profiles and social lives.
Extensions:
Apps which extend communications between users such as mobile (12% active users),IM (1%),super wall(9% active users) andfun wall(13%). The reason these apps are so successful is because users view them as a natural extension of Facebook.
Profile management apps such as:Top Friends(8% active users),Best friends(2%),Entourage(2%) enable users to “manage” their friends and an app likeanti stalkerallows users to see who checked out their profiles and whose online.
Final Thoughts:
As Asi writes, Facebook apps allow us to socially interact with friends in entertaining ways yet very few apps actually offer users any added value. As time goes on, users become more picky about the applications they install, and those apps that have the highest number of active users and not necessarily the highest number of installs will win in the long run.
I completely agree. Widgets/applications are a great way to socially market your company and increase brand exposure. A successful campaign doesn’t necessarily involve having an app with the most installs but rather keeping your audience interested and active. Creating an app with added value to the user definitely increases its sustainability and the user’s dedication.
Check out Poke’s Orange Wednesdays application to be launched in few days. Every Wednesday users get 2 tickets for the price of 1 at cinemas across the UK, enabling users to easily invite friends to the movies. The app also gives information regarding movies playing, trailers, and directions to the theater. Now that’s what I call a useful app.
