Just last week, we saw the first example of a company attempting to monetize their Facebook Page through sponsorship, as US Weekly inserted an ad for State Farm as part of a larger media buy.
As it turns out, US Weekly is using a company called Involver to manage their Page, and today, the same tools that they use are being made available to everyone as Involver launches a variety of apps for Page owners.
Think of Involver’s apps as an aggregation platform that can be used for setting up additional tabs within your Page. For example, in testing the application over the weekend, we’ve setup a “News” tab on the Mashable Facebook Page that pulls in our latest stories – complete with image and snippet – automatically. Setting the apps up is about as easy as installing a typical Facebook application.
There are additional apps – all available and installable from here – that let you pull in tweets, YouTube videos, Flickr photos, and basic RSS feeds. The company has also developed a number of proprietary apps, including one I find particularly interesting – Coupons - which lets retailers offer users a special coupon if they become a fan of their Facebook Page. Other apps include polls, surveys, and file sharing.