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July 20, 2009

The Best Apps for Doing Business on Facebook

The Best Apps for Doing Business on Facebook

Jennifer Van Grove

Associate Editor, Mashable

Summary

Facebook isn't just for games and wall posts. Thanks to their application platform, Facebook has become a viable place to accomplish

Facebook isn't just for games and wall posts. Thanks to their application platform, Facebook has become a viable place to accomplish some solid business objectives.

You'll never believe what you can actually accomplish while spending time in a social network. Here's a closer look at a few applications that will help you promote your business, improve upon your networking abilities, share your professional work, and even get things done.

Promote Your Business

An important part of any business is making sure to get the word out about the company, and its products or services. Thankfully, you can engineer your Facebook profile to do some of the work for you.

Self promotion would be futile without a few endorsements, right? The I Endorse application brings Facebook customer testimonials to your profile, so you can send and collect endorsements for display. Plus, when you install the application, you can create a business profile that will be included in the I Endorse professional directory.

Another great way to promote your business is by using the Networked Blogs app to pimp your corporate blog. The application shows up on your profile (or in your boxes tab) and displays your blog alongside the other blogs you read. Other application users can then promote your blog on their profiles too. It's a great way to share the love and get exposed to a larger audience.

There's also the My LinkedIn Profile application for really promoting your business prowess. Use the application to create a LinkedIn badge on your Facebook profile. Since it's a box that sits on the right hand side of your profile page, you can move it to display it prominently and ensure that visitors also connect with you on LinkedIn.

Always Network

Doing business is all about making meaningful connections, and while Facebook is great for further solidifying relationships, you can use a few apps to help along the process.

SocialFly offers an instant way to turn Facebook into a CRM solution for your friends and contacts. Using the app you can create notes about contacts, set reminders, and manage relationships. It's perfect for adding a convenient business layer to your social networking workflow.

Another great way to reinforce your business relationships while socializing online is to add the Workin' It application. It's a pretty simple app that lets you give gold stars to Facebook friends and thank coworkers, clients, or colleagues with a little online love for the world to see.

Get Things Done

Chances are your staff has Facebook profiles that they're actively checking during business hours. Instead of taking Facebook away, why not bring the work to them? You can use the MyOffice app for project collaboration, which will let you schedule and agree to meetings, organize events, view recent activity, exchange ideas, share files, edit documents, and create to-do lists.

Share Your Work

If your business has picked up the social media bug and you've started to podcast or share your company presentations online, then you can turn to either the PodCast Player app to share your company podcasts with Facebook, or the SlideShare app to do the same with your PowerPoints. What a great way to show the world your professional prowess.

Of course if you're in the legal profession and already using JD Supra, then you can stream your documents and information from that account to your Facebook profile. It's a great way to show off your legal accomplishments and possibly gain a new client or two in the process.