Smart Facebook Applications for Your Biz

By Amanda C. Kooser

There are more than 35 million active members on the hot social networking site Facebook—and that's a marketing and networking opportunity too large to ignore. A lot of entrepreneurs maintain profiles on Facebook, whether it's to keep up with colleagues, hunt for business partners and employees, or just get their faces and their companies' logos out there. Since the Facebook platform opened up to outside developers, there's been a big wave of new applications popping up that are designed especially for the site. Here are some interesting and handy applications for entrepreneurs; try them out by logging in to your Facebook account.

• 30 Boxes: This popular online calendar service now integrates with Facebook. Friends and clients can keep track of your events, and you can send out calendar updates over newsfeed.

• Box.net: No relation to 30 Boxes, this file-sharing application lets you display just about any file through your Facebook profile. Uses can range from sharing a video to sharing a collaborative document. You can use it to communicate and work with partners and colleagues.

• Facebook Flyers: This isn't a third-party application for your profile, but it is of interest. If your business is located near a university, Facebook Flyers is an inexpensive way to advertise to that particular community. Flyers are web ads that are served up to specific university groups and start at just $5.

• SplashCast: This video player lets you embed multimedia into your Facebook profile. You can choose your own content, use the SplashCast directory of audio and video podcasts and add YouTube videos to your personal channel. It's an easy way to get your business's video blog or podcast out to your Facebook connections.

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