Any Page violating our page name policy will be put through a checkpoint. The checkpoint is our tool to educate you about the policy and gives you an opportunity to change and comply. In the case of some page name violations, we will suggest an appropriate change. Admins can accept the suggestion, appeal it, or request a different name change directly from the checkpoint. We will only grant appeals that are policy compliant and will not allow any exceptions."

Similar process goes for cover images that have more than 20% of text – the page will be put trough the educating chceckpoint and will be given a chance to upload a compliant cover photo within 48 hours. Facebook claims that "… failing to do so or repeat violations may lead to deletion of your cover photo." 

More often than not, we see pages that violate the platform policies that should be valid for all brands using Facebook to promote themselves, so we are happy to see attention dedicated to this matter. 

Did you get a developer alert "Your app asks for read and write permissions at the same time" and you don’t know what to do?

Well, let’s start with Granular Data Permission (GDP) v3 which splits read (public profile, friend list, email, birthday, likes, etc.) and write permissions (publish_actions, publish_stream, etc.) into two separate dialogs. Users can login to an app and grant read permissions and skip write permissions so they don't have to worry about social spam and still access the application. Many apps do ask both permissions at the same time which is not really necessary.

Facebook thinks that apps that continue to ask for read and write permissions together are creating a bad user experience because (1) users will see two permissions dialogs back to back when they try to log in, and (2) even if users skip the publish permissions, they will be repeatedly asked for it whenever the logout and log back in to an app. Best practice is to ask for write permission when needed, e.g. user tries to share something on Facebook.
This also applies on mobile (native iOS and Adnroid apps). Excluded from GDPv3 are canvas games. Let us know if you have experienced this developer alert.

Over the past months we have developed a couple of mobile websites, including those with responsive design, iOS/iPhone apps (like Good Sort, FIDM, FIDM Fashion Club, Orders – List Sender) for US market which we wanted to show to marketers and developers in Slovakia. We also like Android… our first app for GooglePlay will be launched soon

At 3rd annual MobileRulezz conference in Bratislava, Slovakia we got it confirmed from leading mobile operator that 66% of mobile phones sold in second half of 2012 were smartphones. Despite smartphones are ruling the mobile world, tablet sales increase are most significant. Among platforms, Android leads the sales (data by Orange SK, Dec 2012) with 76% share, followed by Symbian (11%) and Windows Phone (6%). iPhone/iOS is fourth.

Big problem in Slovak mobile environment is that people don't use internet on their phones or even when they do, they might not use apps. Most active are iPhone users with 93% being active in downloading and using apps. Only 63% Android and 38% Symbian owners use apps. Operators are trying to learn people how to use apps, but it's a long way… most advanced is Orange SK with it's own app OrangeGo, which includes information on free minutes and data, chat, music streaming service, TV streaming, eBook reader, and many more.

From the topics Slovak audience is reading on mobile device, 23% is news, followed by maps/LBS/bus&train schedule (13%) and female/health topics (13%). The peak hours for reading web on mobile is between 8pm – 10pm, and around 8am. Martin Horváth from eTarget said news is the main topic on Monday, Sports on Wednesday and Location/Maps/Bus/Train/Travel/Weather on Friday. This is important data when you are planning to launch a new app or a campaign on mobile on Slovak market.

These stories help music fans find relevant concerts via their Timeline, Facebook events, or within the Concert Calendar app. Once in the app, they can see concerts their friends are going to, browse through suggestions compiled from their Facebook Likes and listening activity on Spotify and variety of other streaming services, or simply search for a specific event, artist, or venue by name.

The app automatically creates Facebook events as Live Nation, Ticketmaster and 95 other vendors are creating them. It also allows people to create their own events. Once they find the right concert, people can RSVP the event, share it, or even purchase tickets. Many of these actions earn them badges, points, and a spot on the leaderboard.

The big bonus for fans—points can be redeemed for Concert Cash and used for thousands of items, including concert tickets, merchandise, and more!

Within the first 6 months over 100,000 users registered, generating over 2 million RSVPs across 266,000 events.

Each "I'm going" correlated with $5 increase in ticket sales.

One of the ways how to do it is to run a campaign – a contest, sweepstake or a giveaway – that will attaract new people to your page and give your existing fans a way how to earn a reward for being fans. 

As developers preferred by Facebook, we have been building apps since 2009 for brands like HBO, Fla-Vor-Ice or Live Nation. 

These are the main campaign types, which we know work the best for attracting new fans and rewarding loyal ones on your page. 

1. Sweepstake

The rule of thumb with Facebook campaigns is the simple-r the bette-r! A simple sweepstake will give your fans (loyal and new) to enter and win some nice prizes. An app like sweepstakes does not take long to build and can bring your page a lot of fans, when you support it with Facebook ads as well. It is one of the most simple and most effective ways how to get more fans. If you are interested in a sweepstake app for your page, send us a message via the contact form at the bottom of this post and we can send you a free quote  

2. Bring your own friends

Bring your own fans is a campaign we created that is designed to make your page go viral. The task in this contest is to bring the highest possible number of your friends into the app and beat other contestants in the leaderboard. An app like this takes advantage of the Facebook environment in a fun way and sparks the viral effect, big time! 

3. Coupon

Brands, who reguragly publish free coupons on their page, get higher people talking about this.An application like this contains customizable coupons, vouchers or codes, which can be redeemed ellectronically in your e-shop (and thus you can track their success rate) or printed out and redeemed in a store. 

4. Giveaway

This is another simple way how to attract more people to your page. The application provides a sign-in form, which prompts fans to enter relevant details and information to claim a free gift with purchase or other goodies. It is a nice way how to find out more about your customers preferences. 

5. Photo contest 

Photo contest are great when you have a smaller, but engaged fan base. The application prompts users to upload a picture to enter the contest. The winner can be determined by the administrator or decided by popular vote – fans voting for the best photo, or a combination of both. 

If you are interested in knowing more, read this article about the most popular types of campaigns or just get in touch via this contact form. 

We're happy to announce that we have gained the Pages Badge from Facebook. 

Badges are qualifications awarded to agencies and digital studious that are a part of Facebook's Preferred Marekting Developer Program. 

Pages Badge is our second qualification, we already have the Apps Badge for our work on custom canvas apps. 

On September 11th Berlin has welcomed 300 developers, who came to brainstorm, code and meet-up at the second Facebook World HACK Day. 

Our developers Rudy Vince and Marek Vavrečan were also in attendance and we managed to persuade them to write a blog post for you about it.

Here is Marek's reporting about the event:

The eight-hour Hackathon took place in Berlin's Café Moskau. During the event you could listen to talks from Facebook engineers, who walked you through the development of applications using Facebook Graph API on different platforms.

Facebook engineers presented Open Graph (OG) protocol as a tool that developers can use to tell stories. There is already a lot of apps using it – for example Spotify uses OG to publish stories about the music you are listening to or Sports Tracker uses it to publish what exercise you have done. Your Facebook friends can see your app activity in their newsfeeds and in ticker. This functions as a growth machine for your application and generates traffic.

After the initial talks the second part of Hackaton started – competition. Over 200 developers could group into teams and then compete against each other in order to win price for the best social application. The Facebook Hackathon quote is: "Move fast and break things" – so everybody had only six hours of time to develop. Besides you had to use Facebook API you could optionally use the API of the event sponsors: 500px, Deezer and Recognize.IM.

The price for the best overall application went to Social Road Trip team for an app that allows you to mark two points on a map and find friends who live near your route.

I think the most creative app was created by Swabian Coding Ninjas- a simple app to make a music playlist for a party.

Silicon Allee also reported about World HACK, saying: "Despite dealing with dismal conditions.such as slow Wi-Fi and even Github crashing during the day, the 300 developers still managed to develop more than 20 applications for the Facebook platform in just under six hours. Even though it was, as Facebook’s lead engineer in Europe Simon Cross said, a “dismal day for the inter-webs”, it was still an impressive display of hackers in Berlin."