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I run a website that has a Facebook application in order to post status updates and other messages to our member's pages. We also want to use Facebook to post updates about the site and accumulate fans, likes, etc. We need to have an application in order to be able to post to member's pages, but our application doesn't actually do anything - if you go to our app page it just directs you to our website.

Questions:

  • Should we have both a Facebook page and a Facebook application or just an application?
  • What exactly is the difference between the two?
  • How do other websites manage this?

Relevant pages:

http://apps.facebook.com/withfit/ - Our current app, doesn't really do anything.

http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/apps/application.php?id=251128963105 - Our applications profile.

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3 Answers 3

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Depends what you mean by post to walls. If you really want if showing on their wall so that they and all their friends see it then yes you need an application. This might be annoying to all your users friends and they can block you. If you just have a page updates you post to the page will show up on the home screen (not profile) of your fans. Remember not everything on facebook shows up it's like SEO you have to do FBO

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Every application is a page; which is very confusing.

I would recommend creating a Facebook page for your site (not an application).

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  • But we need an application as well if want to post to user's walls, right? Would we then post to both our "app profile" and "page" every time we want to post a message?
    – Jeremy Kauffman
    Commented Jul 9, 2010 at 22:31
  • Only to the page.
    – Andrew
    Commented Jul 10, 2010 at 0:31
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In this case I don't think you need an application, just a page for your site.

Applications that post content to users walls / feed should be posting items about how the user is interacting with the application. In this case you're not - you are just trying to send them what are effectively marketing updates.

Users can interact with Pages just as they do with other users (their Friends). As soon as a user Likes your page, any wall posts you make on your page will start to appear in their feed / stream, which seems to be what you want.

As a Facebook user I a) very rarely look at my own Wall any more, b) would immediately remove an app that started spamming my wall with updates.

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