If you’ve been managing Facebook Pages for your Brand, you know what’s up.

Your organic traffic has dropped. Based on some computations from EdgeRank Checker, it continues to go on a downward spiral. But hey, we worked hard to get these likes. What now? Will all these fans that I acquired through paid Facebook ad campaigns go to waste?

In the good old days, engagement from Facebook was a formidable part of our conversion funnel.

And it still is. We finally found a sensible solution to put our paid media to good use and provide an amazing engine for earned media.

Developing Facebook applications have allowed us to collaborate with our clients. In the past two years, we think that we’ve finally found a winner in the form of postcard apps.

What exactly is a postcard app?

Postcard apps refer to Facebook Page tabs where fans fill up a form that posts an image on their timelines. Since Facebook sees this as an image posted by the user, then there’s also a chance that this gets published on the newsfeed*.

To illustrate, you can come up with a thank you card generator with text generated by the user. Likewise, postcard apps are also good for messages like sharing your personal goals to the public (i.e. I want to lose 10lbs. by the end of the month, read 18 books this year, etc.).

Now that we’ve gotten the definition out of the way, let’s get down and dirty!

How does it work?

First, you have to come up with ideas on what your postcard app should talk about. It can be a holiday promotion, a challenge or if you like, generate an actual postcard!

Of course you would like to add certain branding elements on the postcard itself, so don’t forget to add your brand logo or a hashtag!

In designing your form, don’t forget to capture user’s email addresses. You can auto-populate this by connecting your Facebook app to a user’s session (although this is optional). We recommend that you add other pieces of complementary content on your postcard tab app.

Don’t forget to build a measurement strategy (via Google Analytics)!

We provide an administration panel to manage entries and delete ones with offensive content. You can export all the data via .csv and bulk photo downloads.

How do I get people to post photos?

Given the challenges faced by declining newsfeed reach, this is a good time to invest in a paid campaign. All you have to do is have a post that contains a link to the tab where you installed your postcard app and promote it on Facebook. That’s money well spent, given all the potential benefits coming from this strategy. You should target existing and potential fans.

Distribute Engagement

Since these are photos, users who see these postcards can comment, like and share. Get thousands of entries and you’ve got a good engagement engine going throughout your campaign.

It’s Also a Content Farm

We’ve seen brands harvest over thousands of photos generated by their campaigns. What can we do with these? Postcard apps provide you with the ability to store and repurpose this content. Share this on Pinterest boards, Twitter (think #cardoftheday), Instagram photos and even a blog entry.

Grow Your Mailing List

You’re getting email addresses from your fans. Grow your mailing list by adding this on your current list. You can also use this information for future paid campaigns using custom and lookalike audiences.

Have you released a similar campaign on Facebook? How did it go?

(Update: Facebook now has a policy of limiting auto shares on Facebook. This might reduce the value derived from this strategy but the benefits are still worth it).