Welcome to another episode of Thoughtpick’s series of articles: Apps Using SM Brilliantly. We will again be looking into examples of tricks and methods that online games and applications are using to make the most of social media. In other words, what is making those apps as “spreadable” and “viral” as they are.

Today’s application is: Facebook’s Barn Buddy Game.

The Application:

Barn Buddy Game

With 1,948,750 monthly active users and 1,429,112 likes, Barn Buddy Game seems to be gaining in on Farmville, Frontierville, Cafe World and other Facebook applications that fall into that category.

What They Did:

First of all, you can see how social the game is through its name: adding the word “buddy” to the name of the game automatically suggests that you need buddies to play the game right.

Furthermore, not only did they allow their users to 1) look after their own farm, 2) help friends and 3) grow crops together, they also – so cleverly – gave users the option to “be naughty” and steal crops from friends as well!