How Not to Build a Facebook Application: Affiliate Marketers Are Clueless
Published by Rodney Rumford September 21st, 2007 in Facebook Applications, Facebook Marketing.
Rating: 
I guess it is only normal for affiliate marketers to flock to facebook. It has some great application potential for the industry and could be used for many ways to help their business. Most affiliate marketers are all about pushing information; build that list, push promotional information, controlled participation and messaging, make sales… uuuuggghhh.
Nothing wrong with making sales and money; you just better give me a ton of engaging information and value first.
Most affiliate marketers are masters of over statement and self promotion. To quote a press release today: “Affiliate Summit, the largest affiliate marketing conference in the world, has launched a revolutionary Facebook application. Affiliate marketers with questions about anything on the affiliate marketing industry now have a free resource to get knowledgeable answers - in the Ask Affiliate Summit application on Facebook. The Ask Affiliate Summit application is a Web-based program that interacts with core Facebook features and is available for free use to any registered Facebook members…” blah blah blah
Mindless dribble, self promotion and overstatement. Here is what the application does: Ask a question, and only the app owners can answer the question. It does not take advantage of “the core facebook features”; in fact it makes use of none of the features. They would have been better off setting up a facebook group which actually allows interaction and leverages facebook in many ways.
This application is effectively a horrific message board; circulation 15 years ago (with none of the valuable audience participation). The majority of affiliate marketers do not understand the required rules of engagement on facebook. They most likely have not even used facebook to any degree or they would have never built this horrific application.
The 9 things they cold have done with their application but did not
* They could have made a really cool facebook application for sharing knowledge and information and creating a point of gravity for like minded individuals.
* They could have found a way to structure and organize content and make it searchable and easy to find content. If you want to share knowledge, build a knowledge management application
* They could have found a way to integrate video
* They could have found a way to leverage the social graph and true power of facebook
* They could have facilitated a true connection point for all app users
* They could have implemented share points, touch points and viral carrier mechanisms
* They could have encouraged group participation (they lock that out), and leveraged the users knowledge and collective wisdom
* They could actually have navigation in the app
* They could have compelling content on the profile page
* They chose to do none of these things
* WOW, what a revolutionary facebook application. Not!
My hope is that if people choose to use facebook for marketing purposes (which is really smart) that they understand the facebook ecosystem and use it to help facebook members with useful and engaging apps that provide huge value. To quote Napoleon Hill: “If you help enough people get what they want, you will get what you want. Give first with no ulterior motive or expectation”.
Profile Page: nothing valuable here
The revolutionary facebook application: It’s a message board with no navigation or threads. 
Never leave the About Description blank
Technorati Tags: facebook application, Facebook affiliate, affiliate marketing, affiliate summit
Rodney,
to be honest I prefer to read about apps that fail. It gives me more value. I learn what the application doesn’t do and what the one could do
Thanks!
Jan,
I like to strike a balance of reviewing great apps that are useful and engaging vs. crappy and terribly executed applications.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts… There is always a lot to learn.
Actually we typically say in every review how the app could be better.
Rodney -
Thanks for the critique, but I think you miss the mark.
It is not fashioned to be a discussion board at all. Rather, it’s a place where, as advertised, affiliate marketers can get answers to questions they have about the space.
The problem with a board is that anybody can answer, and the answers are often filled with inaccuracies and misinformation.
So here, people can get answers from two veterans in the industry.
And by the way, we have a group on Facebook already for “discussion board” type interaction: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2211215487
I agree with you that there’s a lot they could do with this application that they didn’t. I hope they’ll take your advice. There could be some fun knowledge sharing possibilities here.
What I find the most telling is the “revolutionary,” part. Their app doesn’t even do what our little experimental BlogTips application did.
BTW, we’re going to reskin that application soon and roll it out with some new features.
Shawn,
No problem if you want to have only 2 people providing answers to questions as the authorities. I understand that desire from your perspective. I just find that it is short sighted and 1 dimensional. You can find better ways to share your knowledge and expertise and still allow participation and engagement with the social graph.
I just get the feeling that you rushed to have a facebook app without fully understanding the nuances of what users expect and how to leverage the tool sets that facebook allows within applications. I have evaluated over 1000 facebook apps and have a very clear understanding of what works and why it works.
If it is only meant as a place where users can get answers to their questions; why not present the content in a way that can be consumed more easily? Alert people of changes in content and facilitate easily sharing those answers and content with their friend network, etc.
That is the power of facebook and you are seriously missing out by not engaging the many carrier mechanisms that facebook allows.
Glad to see you have a FB Group. You need to have that information in link format in the app and in the app description to raise awareness of the groups existence.
Keep Creating!
PS. You only allow users to invite friends when they join and not after they join. You need to fix that process and flow to increase easy sharing of invites.
Hi Rodney -
Thanks - I do appreciate your comments.
While I am listed as the developer, it was outsourced, and actually in the model of another app called Ask Gary.
It’s deliberately very simple in the model of something I’ve been doing for years at http://www.AskShawnCollins.com.
Just another touchpoint for our existing audience that attend our conferences.
Now, if you want to see one that serves absolutely no purpose, but to see whether people would try one out with our name on it, see http://apps.facebook.com/affiliatesummit/
Take care,
Shawn
Hi Rodney-
I’m an avid Facebook user for both professional and personal uses. Along those lines, I love my apps that serve a purpse (my Twitter app, my 30boxes calendar app, Upcoming and NES games). I also love people that experiment with Facebook to entice their own communities to join in the magic that is going on there (as you probably do as well… since your blog is based on Facebook adoption, after all).
That being said, I see your criticism as completely silly. We’re all trying to figure this thing (social graphs and/or networks) out. To dismiss an app that answers questions as a model of bad behavior seems rather silly. If anything, you’re exposing your own bias towards a group of professional marketers.
Collect some data, responses and real stats and then dismiss. Otherwise, bring something constructive to the table beyond your negativity.
Sam
Sam,
Glad to see that you are embracing some cool apps on facebook. I like all 4 of the ones you mentioned
No axe to grind with professional marketers. I read their press release and just lost it when I read the word revolutionary. This app is not that. (30 boxes facebook app is revolutionary, we reviewed it a long time ago and gave it 4 .5 stars) I would not have reviewed this app had I not seen the press release. They asked for attention and they got it.
I gave them loads of constructive criticism.
I actually pointed out 9 constructive things they could do to improve the application. If you read my comments above; I responded with some additional tips for improvement.
I know many companies and business people are trying to figure this out, that is the point of this blog.
“To dismiss an app that answers questions as a model of bad behavior seems rather silly” Actually I said quite the contrary. Answering questions and sharing knowledge is a great thing. I just happen to think they could have done it in a more sophisticated way.
I actually was positive and encouraging to the app owners when they responded in the comments area… Hey, all I want is the best possible experience for facebook users and facebook app owners.
If you owned the domain name, http://www.facebookfriend.com, what in your opinion, would be it’s highest and best use? What would you do with it to find maximum monetization? Thanks
MG
Mickey,
The highest and best use case is debatable. You have a trademarked name (facebook) in the domain name and facebook could pursue legal action if you were to use it. So I would not invest anything in a domain name that had the trademarked facebook in the name.
Hey, it is domain squatting pure and simple. Ask your legal counsel and see what they have to say about this issue. It is common knowledge that many websites have been shut down by using trademarked names in the domain name. An example of the is the “For Dummies” series of books and associated trademarks.
That is my 2 cents worth.
Cheers!
i just want to sell some stuff onl;ine and i cant know how to do that..plz if u have any aeda tell me about that opk
bye