Photo by JonDissed

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about how to advertise on Facebook on any budget, but I only reached the tip of the iceberg with one of the most exciting options—Facebook applications. Applications allow users to interact with a brand and immerse themselves in the experience, thereby tying the positive impressions the consumer has of the application with your company.

But while companies like Zynga, RockYou!, and Playfish have found great success with their Facebook applications, not everyone has been so lucky. Think for a moment and count how many Facebook apps you can think of off the top of your head: 10? 20? 25? And of those apps, how many have you added to your profile?  Chances are, you’ve only seen a very small percentage of the over 500,000 applications on Facebook, and while 70% of Facebook users engage with apps each month, saturation is absolutely a serious point to consider. How will your app not only provide value to your users, but keep the value coming to reward returning users? With so many choices, most users will be quick to look to greener pastures.

Added to these difficulties are some new changes that will take place within the month, but that’s not to say they don’t present new opportunities. Notifications are going away, so apps will no longer be able to alert users of updates or recent activities relating to their account; however, applications will now be able to ask for email addresses, giving them the opportunity to draw their users back onto the site. Similarly, one-line updates to users’ mini-feeds will now require explicit consent from the user—that means no more unsolicited Café World updates. In fact, it is now a requirement that all applications make it clear that “Share with Friends” and “Invite” options are never required. But while marketers have historically relied on these channels for exposure, that doesn’t mean that these changes are for the worst.

In reality, removing some of these “spammy” abilities will greatly improve user experience and will help tame the backlash that applications like Mafia Wars met (though it should be noted, Mafia Wars is still in the top 10 apps.) Instead, developers and marketers will be faced with a new challenge—to create the new status quo,  and set a new bar for user-application experience.

The new Facebook comment-by-email functionality may play a key role in helping to engage applications users, should it be leveraged to facilitate game play within apps while off of the site. With the recent success of memes like the bra color status and doppelganger week, it occurs to me that perhaps we’ve underestimated the power of the existing platform. And don’t forget the implicit advertising users already do on their own profiles, between their interests, Fan pages, and groups. Even with the impending changes, remember there is still new land to discover on Facebook, and in social media, it’s the first one there that gets to raise their flag.

Claire Grinton is a brand strategist and writer based in San Francisco. Find more from Claire or contact her at claire[dot]grinton[at]gmail.

Tags: community, Facebook, Marketing, Social Media, social network, the right way