Colorado-based startup, Napkin Labs, has developed a suite of Facebook apps, aiming to allow brands to collaborate and interact with fans in new ways.

 

 

Companies have built considerable number of fans on the social network, but how can they harness this following and help to shape the future of their brand?

 

Napkin Labs’ off-the-shelf suite of apps can be installed into a Facebook Timeline with a single click (they are incrementally priced according to the number of fans your page boasts) and add a crowdsourcing element to the platform. They offer four different apps:

 

Photoboard: This app lets you post questions or prompts to your community and allows fans to submit images. Fans can then ‘like’ and comment on visuals that have been submitted. It has been designed to be an easy way to capture user generated photos and images all in one simple interface.

 

 

Pipeline: While Photoboard is visual and campaign based, Pipeline is an ongoing forum for fans to submit ideas, feedback and suggestions. After installing it to your Timeline, fans can also comment on and ‘like’ other fan ideas. As a virtual suggestion box, it also allows you to favourite ideas and see what is bubbling to the top.

 

Brainstorm: The a basic crowdsourcing platform that lets you run customised projects to capture ideas from your fans around a question and even provide rewards for their input. While Pipeline is meant to be an ongoing forum for ideas, Brainstorm lets you host a more targeted campaign where users can submit ideas with images and detailed descriptions, whether it is for new product ideas or to collate ideas for designs or ad campaigns.

 

 

Superfans: When you install this app to your Facebook fan page, it maps and scores every interaction your fans have had on your page, like comments, ‘likes’, polls you ran, etc. Once processed, faces will appear in the app – these are your most active and influential fans broken down into categories. For example, ‘All Time Best’ will display the most active fans on your page, while ‘Brand Favourites’ are the fans that you, as a page admin, have interacted with the most.

 

 

Napkin Labs recently demonstrated how its Facebook apps will work with a custom app it made for Domino’s Facebook page, “Think Oven”. Users were given the opportunity to submit their designs to the pizza brand with the hope of winning cash rewards.

 

Video: Domino’s Pizza “Think Oven”.

 

Do you think brands will be paying for applications to engage with their fans? Join the discussion on our Facebook page.