Using Facebook Apps to Increase Traffic by 300%

While there is almost unanimous agreement that advertising on Facebook results in little to no return on investment, the jury is still out on the viability of Facebook applications, with some sites showing an excess of 300% growth attributed to adopting the Facebook platform.

A report from VentureBeat outlines the change in traffic that three sites, Slide, Rockyou and HotorNot, witnessed after they launched applications for Facebook. Each of the sites have launched multiple Facebook applications, some of which have over millions of users (Slide's Top Friends application has almost 10 million users and is the most popular application on the social networking site).

Here's a quick look at the statistics of the Top Friends application (total users, and new users per hour, courtesy of Appaholic):

Acknowledging this trend and the demand from companies for Facebook applications, a new service by the name of FBFactory has been launched, that specializes in application development. The service takes 3-5 days to create your application and prices are negotiated based on the kind of project. While the rise in traffic to the three sites mentioned shows promise for Facebook applications, the results should also be taken with a grain of salt, and how realizable the potential is for the average outfit remains to be seen.

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Reader Comments (7)

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Andrey Milyan, July 25, 2007

Many marketers measure the success of the social media campaign in terms of traffic, which I, personally, find strange. Just when we've abandoned doing that with PPC and SEO, we make the same mistake with social media marketing.

Noah Everett, July 25, 2007

I wonder if the trend will last even when facebook becomes bloated with apps.

FBFactory Team, July 25, 2007

Muhammad,

Thanks for the link and coverage. We think these stats are proof that the platform is an advantage to destination sites. This holds true to sites that can already monetize users on their size. The advantage of having a facebook application is opening the doors to a new 30 million possible clients/members/users. We're actually the first dedicated firm to producing applications and hopefully will have a chance to create Pronet first facebook application. -FBFactory Team |www.FBFactory.com

Daniel R, July 26, 2007

Muhammed,

Do you have any data on who is monetizing and how? And I'm not just talking about publishers like RockYou, but rather the actual people that pay for the App.

I attended the "CommunityNext Conference: Viral Marketing" conference, which had many sessions on widgets. While widgets were hot for buzz and traffic, when the audience pressed on monetization not many cases were available.

See my blog posting on the Viral Marketing conference here: http://www.emergence-media.com/2007/07/communitynext-viral-marketing-conference-notes-and-slides/

Craig Morrison, July 30, 2007

One of my clients, a UK online florist, Arena Flowers (www.arenaflowers.com), launched a Facebook app on Friday (http://apps.facebook.com/arenaflowers/) and by Monday 1600 people had installed it and it had been used 2500 times. It is, of course, a widget for sending virtual flowers. And arguably it'll be monetized because those who use it get discounts on then sending the real thing. It's sweet and simple. Everyone's at it but these guys are the first to do flowers on there...

Ian from www.thenewsroom.com, August 4, 2007

Hopefully, this application will be doing the same thing as you're talking about...http://apps.facebook.com/thenewsroom

FBAppDev, August 19, 2007

There are many way to monetize your application just need creativity..we have build many which are running successfully..think out of box and come out of Advertisement as revenue...there are many way to earn directly through User traffic. Do you have any idea and want to get implemented..we are here for you.

FBAppDev at Gmail

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