With more than 600 million users (and counting) and a planned IPO that values the company at many billions of dollars, Facebook is clearly more than just a place for individuals to post cute cat videos or update their friends with the latest George Takei wisdom. Businesses are customizing their Facebook presence and leveraging Facebook apps and app development to, among other things, engage new and existing customers, increase their fan base, and drive brand awareness. Apps built on the Facebook platform can integrate with many aspects of Facebook, including the News Feed and Notifications. Also available to apps on Facebook are Social Plugins, the Graph API, and Platform Dialogs. In addition, Facebook recently announced that it was approving more than 60 new apps that take advantage of a more talkative version of the Open Graph API.

Whether your business builds its own apps, uses an existing app, or works through an agency to beef up presence, customization of Facebook pages can yield significant benefits in terms of existing customer satisfaction and new customer acquisition, as well as brand awareness. In this slideshow, we take a look at some of the campaigns organizations have launched leveraging Facebook. If your organization would like to share a Facebook success story, send me an email.