Top 15 Facebook Apps For Business

4Comments | Alison Diana | January 15, 2011 06:00 AM

While many of Facebook's 500 million users waste part of their days growing virtual crops or committing imaginary crimes, there are many Facebook applications designed to actually improve business productivity. There are more than 550,000 active applications on the Facebook platform, according to the social network, with many designed specifically to improve business practices or better-integrate Facebook into a company's operations. Many business apps are free. Often, fee-based apps offer a basic service at no charge. Frequently, only limited support, usually via Facebook, is available. In addition to general-purpose business applications, there are apps for specific verticals and jobs such as real estate, education, the entertainment industry, Web design, and marketing. These 15 are worth a look.

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RSS Graffiti

RSS Graffiti, originally designed for Facebook page administrators, is useful for anyone dealing with multiple RSS feeds, especially those overseeing Facebook fan pages or multiple pages. The free app, developed by RSS Graffiti, checks user-specified RSS/Atom feeds and posts any new entries it finds to pre-selected Facebook walls. More than 353,000 people are using the app each month.

Well-established, easily recognized companies -- such as Microsoft and Twitter -- are behind some business apps. In other cases, smaller and newer enterprises like CircleUp and Huddle developed business-specific Facebook apps. In some instances, individuals looking to resolve a problem or rise to a technology challenge created apps, and then shared them on Facebook. No matter who did the coding, these business apps were designed to address issues such as group and individual calendaring; marketing campaigns; online collaboration; media feeds and analytics, and business networking. And, as Facebook continues toward its stated goal of 1 billion users, it's highly likely more business-friendly apps -- as well as productivity hogs -- will continue to arrive.

In August, Americans spent 685,000 hours on Facebook, accounting for 10% of overall time spent on the Internet in the United States, according to comScore. In fact, U.S. Internet users spent 22.7% of their time on social networking sites -- up 43% from the 15.8% they spent in 2009, according to an August 2010 study by The Nielsen Co. By comparison, users spent 8.3% of their online time reading and sending emails, the report found.

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