35 Great Inspirations & Apps for Your Facebook Page

Facebook pages are a great way to foster user engagement and promote a brand. Over time, Facebook has added a lot of features to make business pages more functional and feature rich.  Lot of brands are building cool and extremely interactive business pages on top of the world’s largest social network. One has to see at least a few of these designs to get a good idea how powerful Facebook pages can be.

Lot of third party apps – both free and paid – help bring people together for a conversation on their Facebook pages. After the break we have compiled a list of 35 cool design inspirations and apps to help make your Facebook page awesome.

Inspirations

Porsche

Porche’s Facebook page is as awesome as their iconic cars. Right from their Facebook page you can choose the model of your dreams, pick the colors and even choose the rims that will go great with the car.

Symantec

The famous computer security company’s Facebook is page is a mixture of information and introspection. People can download their security research reports, read their blog and tweets and take part in their weekly surveys.

Dogpatch Labs

Dogpatch Labs is a “frat house for geeks” (that’s how the company puts it) and helps to connect entrepreneurs and help founders conceive and launch startups. In true geek style, the Facebook page is designed to work as a standalone webpage from where one can click links to access their blog, twitter feed etc.

Skittles

Skittles has a very colorful and fun Facebook page. From here fans can watch the TV ads, share with friends and can submit a crazy picture of their own to get themselves on the Rainbow of the Week wall.

McDonald’s

McDonald’s page is great to look and has sub-pages dedicated to their flagship items from the menu.

Harry Potter

The Harry Potter movie page is a great place for the fans of the wizarding world to hang out. From trailers and set photos to sweepstakes and shopping cart to buy DVDs, this a great example of a fully laid out Facebook page.

Verizon

Verizon’s Facebook page is another great example of maximum usage of the Facebook platform. Their page acts like a quasi-website and is fully functional. Users can buy ringtones and choose the right phone, all from their Facebook fan page.

Blackberry

Blackberry is promoting their Playbook tablet left, right and center. Fans can read featured Blackberry news from across the web, take part in discussion and find their very own Blackberry.

Dell

Dell has an elegant and functional Facebook page which excels in intuitiveness. New models and updates are featured prominently and all related Dell product pages and country specific Facebook pages are listed here as well.

Nokia

Nokia’s Facebook page design is exactly like that of their official homepage,  complete with their choice of fonts and design elements. Links to their regional and country specific Facebook pages are very prominently listed and apps from their Ovi store are featured as well.

Bare Escentuals

Bare Escentuals is a cosmetics company and they have a full length vertically designed page that looks like a glossy flyer.

ecycler

ecycler redefines the coolness quotient of a Facebook page with a snazzy design and useful tips to recycle stuff.

iTunes

The iTunes Facebook page has a very Apple-like design: clean, cool and minimal.

Zappos

Well known for its fanatical customer support, the Zappos Facebook page offers exclusive deals to people who like their page. What is there to not like about Zappos?

Tiny Prints

Tiny Prints is a stationery company and its Facebook page sports a minimalistic design. Fans get a free greeting card.

Jones Soda

From interactive elements to offering a free iPhone app, Jones Soda Facebook page is a brilliant example of brand promotion on the world’s largest social network.

Vitamin Water

The beverage has a great landing page but misses out on the interactive part.

Doritos

From a Xbox giveaway to a global music event featuring Rihanna, there is a lot of stuff happening at the Doritos Facebook page.

BestBuy

The big box retailer’s Facebook page is gorgeous and very informational. Check out their other Facebook fan pages as well.

NFL

The NFL Facebook page has a lot things going for it. From the 2011 drafts to leaderboard, fans have everything they need over here.

Want more Facebook fan page inspiration? Check out Jarel’s roundup of 35 of the best Facebook Fan Pages from 2010.

Apps

Ashley Boo

From the stable of Rounds, the super cool social chat platform, comes Ashley Boo. It is a new and innovative interactive campaign on Facebook. Users write what they want to do with Ashley and the profile comes to life and responds to users’ requests in a totally fun and exciting way. It was primarily created in order to promote their Facebook application, Video Chat Rounds, but is a totally fun app to check out. Try writing one of the following: Start a food fight, Travel the world, or Go out on a date and see what happens.

faster 88

faster88 is a hiring tool. It allows companies, brands, bands, non-profits to hire from their fan page. Once activated, faster88 adds a tab called “Jobs” which in turn acts like a mini-career site. In addition to listing open positions, the app also lets candidates apply without leaving facebook!

Divshare

Divshare app for Facebook is an extension of the online file sharing site of the same name. Send your documents, photos, music and videos to your friends with DivShare — it’s fast and free. You can send your files to individual friends, post them to your profile or add them to your news feed.

Slideshare

SlideShare is the world’s largest community for sharing presentations and with their Facebook app, you can share presentations & documents with your Facebook network, embed YouTube videos in presentations, upload digital files in almost any format etc. IF you have an existing Slideshare account, you can import the documents directly too.

My Countdowns

Got an awesome surprise coming up and looking to drum up some hype? This app lets you add countdowns (or countups) to your profile! Create a public or private countdown, attach icons (over 500 to choose from), pick which style you want, date format, even make it a link to another website.

Eventbrite

Eventbrite is a popular online destination for event planning. When you create an event at their web app, select the publish to Facebook option and Eventbrite will publish the event page directly on Facebook with your event details and a link to buy tickets. Your event is also promoted through your newsfeed.

Welcome Tab

Creating a Welcome tab for your Facebook profile or fan page is now so easy with the Welcome tab. Once installed the app will sit next to your Wall and Info tabs. Your Facebook friends and fans will be able to see and share your content right here on Facebook.

Fan Appz

Fan Appz is a suite of Facebook applications built for managing fans and your fan pages. With the help of this app, your fans can now discover and share the latest fashions, gadgets, trends, popular culture and content from some of the best Fan Pages on Facebook.

My Top Fans

My Top Fans analyzes your interactions between you and your friends and calculates with whom you share the most. The app also lets you filter top fans based on gender and also lets you pull some nifty reports too.

Where I’ve Been

Are you a globe trotter and go to a lot of tourist destinations? Now you can flaunt to your friends and fans all the cool places you have been on an interactive map. You can also help people by giving  advice & hot tips to travelers and friends.

Graffiti

Think writing on a Facebook wall isn’t exactly as cool as writing on a real wall? Then you should give Graffiti a try. The app lets you  draw a doodle or graffiti for your friends. You can either start from scratch or use one of their templates.

Honesty Box

Ok, now this is one interesting app. Want to really know what other people think about you? Use Honesty Box. The app allows people to send & receive anonymous messages and help discover what people really think of you. Once the comments are posted into the box, there is no way for the one who asked for a candid comment to know who exactly said what.

Marketplace

Facebook Marketplace lets you sell, give away, buy, rent, ask, or search for anything you want. You can also support charities by selling for a cause. This app makes it easy to see what your friends have posted and what is available in your area.

Picnik

Facebook is the largest photo sharing destination online. Picnik makes your photos fabulous with easy to use yet powerful editing tools. Tweak to your heart’s content and then get creative with oodles of effects, fonts, shapes, and frames.

Weekly Schedule

Everyone is busy these days and it is getting difficult to find a time for a meet up. Weekly Schedule allows you to post a graphical display of your weekly activities for all your friends to see. With the help of this app, now all your friends can keep track of your activities before making plans.

Share Your Thoughts!

What Facebook apps do you use to promote user engagement? Which one is your favorite Facebook fan page?