Here’s a great lesson for any company. If you’re going to take the time to hire a development firm to create an application for a social network like Facebook, make sure you have all the right elements to make it a success.

Back in February, Burger King launched the Sacrafice Friends for a Wopper campaign. It was a huge success that spread quickly across Facebook.

Whopper > Facebook Friends.

I hunted down an interview with Jeff Benjamin, the creator of Burger King’s hit viral Facebook application to find out how he came up with the idea. Benjamin very succinctly puts goals of the application into perspective, “we try and find spots where it’s not just about buying impressions—it’s about creating something that makes people create the impressions for you for free. People can do the advertising for you if you give them the inspiration and the tools.”

Online Marketing Requires a Different Strategy.

Benjamin says it perfectly! So many companies don’t realize that marketing in the digital era requires a much different strategy than traditional tactics. Marketing online is about creating something unique and worth sharing. The attention of audience is pulled in so many different directions that you need to be creative with your marketing dollars.

Why The BK Application Worked.

Burger King combined all the right elements to make their application a hit. Facebook users were asked to sacrafice ten friends and in return BK would give them a coupon for a free whopper. Pretty simple concept and brilliantly executed.

BK directly integrated sharing features and publishing to the Facebook stream. They also gave people an incentive to use the app and did it in a unique way that made it worth spreading the word. BK did everything right to make it a success.

What You Can Learn.

There are two main lessons here. The first is to find creative ways to spend your marketing dollars online, the internet makes it really easy to reach your ideal target audience if you’re creative.

Second, if you’re going to spend the time and money developing an application for a platform like Facebook, make sure you take full advantage of the platform’s features! Make it easy for people to share the application with their friends and give them an incentive to do so. If you’re creative enough, your fans will spread the word for you.

What are you doing to make your company a success online? Let us know in the comments.