Creating a Facebook Application for integration with website.

Being able to share articles or blog entries from your website to your Facebook Fan Page is an important part of Social Marketing and not having to retype the post summary and link could save a lot of time and possible errors.

There are a number of "plug-ins" available for different platforms and XMS Systems is no different.
XMS Systems can post articles, blog entries, stock items and tour summaries direct to your facebook fan page with the click of a single button.

Before you can use the facebook plug-in you will need to create a Facebook App that allows the integration with your website.
Follow the steps below exactly and it should be easy to get going.

1. Login to your personal facebook account and look at the bottom left of the page you will see a section called "Developer", click the "Manage Apps" link.

2. Add a New App by clicking the "My Apps" link on the menu then "Add a New App" at the bottom of the menu.

3. Select "www" on the screen that pops up because you are going to create an app that will integrate with your website.

4. Skip the wizard and click on the "Skip and Create App ID" link at the top right of the page

5. Create a New App ID by completing the form as follows

• Dsplay Name (sic)
  Add a name of your app. In my case MyBuzinessRocks. There is nothing fancy to this.
• Namespace
  This can be left blank in our case. We are not going to do anything fancy with our app.
• Is this a test version...?
  No
• Category
  Select a category from the drop-down
• Click the Create App ID button

6. Successful app id creation will lead you to the new App Dashboard.
At this stage you will not have a green dot next to your app Display Name because your app is not public yet.

7. Add your domain to your app. Click "Settings" on the menu to the left and add your website domain name and contact email address.
You do not have to complete anything else on any of the screens. Click the "Save Changes" button to continue.

8. Activate your app by clicking on the "Status & Review" menu option, then "Yes" on the next screen. A pop-up will ask to to confirm you want to go public. Click the "Confirm" button.

9. Submit items for approval.
In the case of XMS Systems you will be the only person that is going to post items to the Facebook Fan Page. Your site visitors is not going to do it so you do not need to submit your app to Facebook for approval.
The basic items your app will use is already approved by default.

9. Roles. The only other items you are going to use are manage_pages, user_photos, publish_pages. As long as you are the only person going to use the app you do not need explicit approval from facebook to use those permissions as long as you are listed as one of the "Administrators" for the app.

10. Facebook Page ID is the last thing you will need to integrate your new app with your website. Thankfully Facebook recently made it easier to find it without having to "hack" that page to find it.
Navigate back to your Facebook Fan page and edit your page. Under the "Page Info" tab right at the bottom of the page you will find your page ID.