How to build a successful Facebook application – insights from FacebookCamp Toronto

Last night the GigPark crew, a handful of my friends and what seemed like most of the Toronto tech community descended on the MaRS building for FacebookCamp Toronto.

FacebookCamp was part of the Facebook Developer Garage series and focused on strategies and tips for developing a successful application on the Facebook platform.

The highlight of the night for me was a presentation by Meagan Marks, a platform manager from Facebook. She offered some great insight into user behaviour on the site, clearly laid out all of the ways you can integrate with Facebook and offered some strategies for making sure your application benefits from “the Facebook effect“.

I was going to write up my notes but Joey deVilla has already done a much better job than I would have over on the Global Nerdy blog (thanks Joey!).

The key points I took away from the event were very simple:

1. Successful applications offer self promotion for users (on my profile as well as other areas of Facebook) and social comparisons based on actions (am I smarter, hotter, better travelled… than my friends?)

2. Successful applications often integrate very deeply into Facebook (apparently some developers have found up to 14 different ways to integrate: messages, profile actions, the wall, share buttons…)

Happy Facebook developing everyone!