Would you check out your grocery store’s Facebook Page before taking off for your weekly shopping trip? It seems like the stores hope you will, given what we saw this week when we looked at an assortment of grocery stores that have set up shop on Facebook.

Given the wide range of grocery store chains around the US, we made sure to look at both larger ones and smaller, regional ones.

Piggly Wiggly is a chain in the southeast part of the country, with about 6,900 Facebook fans. Safeway is a company with several brands under its umbrella that has 1,775 Safeway stores throughout the U.S. and Canada with 66,800 fans. Ukrop’s is a chain in Virginia with 4,400 fans. Albertsons is a chain in the western US with almost 8,600 fans on its Page. HEB is a chain in Texas and Mexico with about 24,800 fans. Finally, Kroger is also a national chain with more than 14,000 Facebook fans on its Page.

Grocery stores seemed to take a different approach to Facebook than we’ve seen with other industries, in that they focus all of their content almost exclusively on specials and recipes that appear either in status updates/links on the Wall or in notes. Actually, grocery stores seem to utilize the notes more regularly and consistently than others industry we’ve studied — the feature is primarily used to share recipes and events. And, more often than not, the products/recipes being promoted are in-store brands, giving these companies yet another opportunity to promote themselves.

Of course it makes sense that an industry so narrowly focused on food would be food-centric on Facebook, but the grocers seemed almost a little more relaxed about branding on their Pages than other types of companies we’ve seen. One obvious explanation for this is, of course, that many communities only have one grocery store and so are already inherently loyal to that brand. This is true with HEB in South Texas, for example, where there are virtually no other grocery stores that compete other than Wal-Mart and Target.

Safeway had the best notes of the stores we saw, located on the Blog tab, as it seems they are importing the blog from their web site onto Facebook. The result is crisp, professional-looking and easy to read. It also has a snazzy Savings tab that promotes store brands, coupons and home-delivery, and allows users to enter their location to find out weekly specials, sign up for emails with specials or find a store — all of this content, however, directs back to Safeway’s web site.

HEB did something similar, providing two links on the Ads & Coupons tab to view a weekly ad and coupons on external sites. One thing that HEB did really well — that seems to be exemplary of the smaller chains — is that it markets very closely to customers’ needs. For example, a status update today notes that an in-store clinic can provide diabetes tests (Texas has high rates of diabetes) and one from yesterday is promoting Easter recipes. South Texas is largely Catholic and meat consumption is limited during the pre-Easter Lent period. Other stores followed the same pattern, southeastern chain Piggly Wiggly posted a status update on March 24, “We at The Pig have never met a BBQ sauce we didn’t like. What’s your favorite recipe?” and Ukrop’s in Virginia is promoting skiing discounts.

One thing we see that would definitely behoove these companies is to locate their coupons directly on their Facebook Pages. Promotions for free hamburgers or bagels have been successful because people could simply print the coupons directly off the companies’ Facebook Pages. Other features like locator maps could also be built directly onto Facebook.

Ultimately it seemed like grocery stores made their presence on Facebook more functional than anything else. Because they don’t necessarily have to work as hard to build brand loyalty, they go straight for promoting their products and suggesting ways that fans can use them, as we saw with the notes/recipes made available on these Pages. Each store also featured store-related photos, a few had videos of recipes being made, there were a few polls, some events, and little use of the discussions function, but the Wall and the notes seemed to be where everything happened.

Becoming a fan of a grocery store might be more tempting if there were Facebook-specific offers to be had. We weren’t able to reach any of the grocery stores mentioned, but it seems apparent that Facebook is figuring somewhat prominently into their marketing strategy, given that several promoted the Pages on their web sites and HEB is asking customers to become fans right on their receipts. For more information about how grocery stores, or any type of company, could better take advantage of Facebook marketing check out our Inside Facebook Marketing Bible.

Zynga‘s traffic has been a fascinating trajectory over the last year or so. The company was a relatively normal-sized game developer from when it began working on Facebook’s platform in 2007 to July, 2009. Then, all of a sudden, growth started going up.

Here’s a closer look, using data from our independent AppData app-tracking service. Zynga had 52.6 million monthly active users (MAU) and 9.35 daily active users (DAU) at the end of June. It shot up over the following months, starting with its hit game FarmVille, eventually reaching 239 million MAU and 63.5 million DAU by the end of the year. That’s MAU growth to 3.5 times more than its July starting point, and DAU growth to more than 6 times then, with its year-end number of daily actives actually more than its number of monthly actives it began the growth period with.

Intriguingly, the company’s traffic numbers have stayed relatively flat since then. This suggests that the company decided to call a halt in 2010 to whatever tactics it was using to grow. It has the same number of MAU today as last year, at 239 million. Its DAU has averaged a little higher since then, and is now coming in at around 68.5 million.

We don’t have the so-called “Zynga Playbook,” but we’ve been following social gaming and Facebook’s platform for years, so here’s some of our observations about these growth patterns.

Traffic Changes

Zynga had a fast growth rate from September, 2008, (when we began tracking the company) all the way to July, 2009. The company had 16.9 million MAU at the end of that September, and steadily grew over the course of the fall, reaching 23.9 million MAU by the first day of 2009. By April, it was already vying for the largest developer title on Facebook. From there, it gained around 30 million more users before July.

What Zynga did in late 2008 and early 2009 set it up for its later growth in terms of user base, revenue streams, and knowledge. During this time, the company was refining early hits like Texas Hold’Em Poker and Mafia Wars. The former game made a lot of money and the latter did, too, but it also served as a “public laboratory” for basically any new type of feature that Zynga wanted to try out in other games.

By March of 2009 rumors were beginning to leak out about the company’s revenue. Over the course of that winter, estimates put its revenue run-rate for 2009 at $50 million, then $100 million. (Eventually the rumored numbers climbed much higher, given its later growth, and we estimate the company made well over $200 million by the end of last year.) It was helping to create an entire industry around virtual goods monetization, as we covered in detail at the time.

Even though Zynga had been busy experimenting with traditional games like poker and “X Wars” role-playing games, it had begun branching out. It had bought Facebook simulation game YoVille in July of 2008 — a game that many developers had been noticing, because it was bringing in so many daily active users that it could monetize through virtual goods. The app continued to grow, going from nearly 2 million MAU at the end of September, 2008 to 7.81 million by the end of June. Meanwhile, other simulation games began to get big, too, including ones from Playfish, and Slashkey’s Farm Town, which pioneered virtual farming on Facebook.

Zynga had figured out some other tactics, too. It did things like optimize app communications for the version of the news feed that Facebook introduced that spring. . And it figured out that it could make money on games through advertising them on Facebook.

When it launched FarmVille at the end of June, it poured in everything it had — cross-promotions, communication optimization, ads, game mechanics, etc. FarmVille’s traffic exploded. It kept expanding its headcount to keep pace, putting more than 100 people on FarmVille alone eventually, and hiring hundrds more to handle various aspects of its operations.

Zynga also used the new users and revenue from that game to in turn help all of its other applications grow. It launched a string of other simulation games that fall: Café World, FishVille and PetVille. Each of these games in turn saw massive growth numbers, and became either category leaders or top rivals to other game companies. Along with FarmVille, they comprised the majority of Zynga’s MAU and DAU growth in the second part of 2009. But as we’ve noted, each one grew somewhat less than the last.

What’s Next?

Zynga has been quiet on the product side in 2010. Chief executive Mark Pincus alluded to strategic changes in an interview with us at the end of last year:

I feel that social gaming today is where Friendster was at the beginning. Yes, it was popular, but people didn’t use it, they talked around it. You went to bar and talked about it. But the amount of interaction inside wasn’t that high. Facebook took it to next level, with features like pokes, the news feeds, the wall for user profiles. Communication with your network was on the network.

I think that social gaming is in a similar place. In the next year to two years, it needs to be more about real user interaction and communication inside of the gaming experience. Today, its very hard to communicate with friends in FarmVille, but people talk about it at the bar, in dorms, on Facebook, and everywhere else. In 2010, they should talk about it in FarmVille.

The company has continued to churn out new features for its biggest existing games, but the only new title it has launched this year is Poker Blitz, a simplified version of Texas Hold’Em. The company hasn’t built a synchronous game, since the original poker game, so the move was surprising. It suggests that the company is experimenting with how to make synchronicity work better in a social environment, and thereby provide more of the experiences that Pincus talked to us about. Since launching at the beginning of the month, though, the app has seen respectable but relatively slow growth. It passed the 1 million MAU mark today, with around 180,000 DAU.

Given what Zynga did last year, one gets the sense the company decided to make 2010 more like 2008 than 2009 — a year of experimentation, as it tries to figure out how to position itself for the next wave of social games, whatever that might be. There’s no clear genre of game, like simulations, that is obviously available for it to focus on. Pincus will be telling us more about what the company is up to in just a few weeks, as he’s keynoting our Inside Social Apps 2010 conference happening on April 20th in San Francisco. Stay tuned.

The newly revised, expanded, and hot-off-the-press Facebook Marketing Bible: 50+ Ways to Market Your Brand, Company, Product, or Service Inside Facebook – April 2010 Edition is now available!

The Facebook Marketing Bible has been purchased by thousands of agencies, marketers, social application developers, entrepreneurs, and educators, and is the leading resource on Facebook marketing today. It is also available in French, Spanish, Italian, and print.

The densely-packed Facebook Marketing Bible contains four detailed sections: Tools for Guerilla Marketers, Tools for Advertisers, Tools for Application Developers, and Tools for Webmasters. Each part outlines the best available channels and strategies for reaching your audience inside Facebook. Please see the full table of contents below.

In addition, Inside Facebook is happy to announce that through April 30th all customers who purchase the Facebook Marketing Bible will also receive a free $25 Facebook Ads advertising credit, courtesy of Facebook (see terms). Now that Facebook has crossed the 400 million active user mark, there’s never been a better time to reach your target audience inside Facebook.

The April 2010 edition includes updates on the following topics:

• Detailed updates on Facebook’s latest home page redesign and privacy updates, and what it means for Page owners and developers and Connect partners. Facebook’s “privacy update” a few weeks ago had many users up in arms – but how will it change Facebook marketing? And now that Facebook has moved back to a “Top Stories” view of the News Feed by default, new rules apply for maximizing your reach and engagement within Facebook. Now, just last week Facebook has announced its intention to create “opt out” Facebook Connect integrations on partner web sites. We’ve broken down all the new rules and offered detailed and specific advice for marketers hoping to reach more users inside Facebook – including details on other new features like real time search, status tagging, status targeting, Twitter integration, why marketers should choose Facebook Pages over Facebook Groups, key SEO strategies every Facebook Page owner should know, and the best tools to manage your Facebook Page. See the table of contents below for more details.
• Updated details on Facebook’s new Promo/Sweepstakes guidelines for Pages, and how to make sure you’re staying within them. Facebook recently updated the policies that all marketers must abide by when conducting sweepstakes or promotions inside Facebook. We have all the do’s and don’ts. In addition, we have all the details on Facebook’s new policies for subscription and download ads, and details on recent tweaks to Facebook’s home page engagement ads. Finally, get the latest on Facebook’s metrics dashboards, and the new weekly stats summary emails.
• The latest updates on Facebook’s advertising tools, including the per post insights, conversion tracking, and powerful new targeting features. Now that Facebook’s new Ads Manager is here, Facebook Ads are becoming more efficient to use than ever before. Just this month, Facebook added several thousand new cities for local ad targeting. And, with Facebook’s new “connection” targeting, “friends of connections” targeting, birthday targeting, and time scheduling tools, advertisers now have the ability to reach their target audiences in more targeted ways – and measure them with Facebook’s improved per post insights. Learn how to use these new tools to get the most out of your performance marketing dollars. Plus, check out ways Facebook is experimenting with virtual currency gifting and branded virtual gifts.
• The latest details on Facebook’s Platform API changes and Facebook Credits virtual currency payment service for application developers. Find out the latest on what Facebook’s latest Platform API changes mean for marketers, and what Facebook’s new payment program means for the future of virtual currency payments on Facebook (and Facebook revenues) – including Facebook’s latest international currency efforts.
• The latest tools for webmasters to drive more traffic to their site and build more social context through Facebook Connect, Facebook Share, and Facebook widgets. With Facebook Connect (now available in dozens of languages) and Facebook Share, publishers have new opportunities for both enriching their sites with deeply social features and leveraging Facebook’s powerful feed system for driving traffic to their site. Get new details on metrics early Facebook Connect partners are seeing, and learn how to optimize your Facebook Share integration.
• New tools for advertisers to target their Facebook Ads better than ever before. With enhanced Facebook targeting tools, advertisers now have the ability to reach their target audiences in much more powerful ways. Learn how to use these new tools to get the most out of your performance marketing dollars. Plus, check out ways Facebook is experimenting with virtual currency gifting and branded virtual gifts.
• Plus, more updates on the removal of application notifications, what that means for marketers, and more.

Purchase this report The Facebook Marketing Bible – Current Edition Buy PDF: $95 USD OR Buy PDF + 1 Year of Free Monthly Updates: $295 USD

For those interested in learning more, click the purchase link above. The price is $95, or $295 with 12 months of free updates emailed directly to your inbox. As always, please make suggestions if you’d like to see more attention paid to any topic!

Purchase this report The Facebook Marketing Bible – Current Edition Buy PDF: $95 USD OR Buy PDF + 1 Year of Free Monthly Updates: $295 USD

Zynga holds the top spots on this week’s list of top-gaining Facebook apps by daily active users with three of its games, outweighing everything else with what are relatively small gains in terms of its overall user numbers.

Interestingly enough, Zynga also took the two top spots on our top Pages list yesterday, for Texas Hold’em Poker and Mafia Wars. Along with FarmVille and PetVille, the top two below, those games are part of what’s becoming a dependable core for Zynga, while some of its smaller properties shrink.

Much of the rest of the list is also filled with games; as usual, we discuss them more over at Inside Social Games. Here’s the rest of our AppData top 20:

	Name	DAU	Gain	Gain, %
1.	FarmVille	31,620,643	+1,134,429	+3.72
2.	PetVille	5,828,407	+929,667	+18.98
3.	Texas HoldEm Poker	7,009,693	+490,812	+7.53
4.	Zoo Paradise	574,505	+460,385	+403.42
5.	Facebook for iPhone	15,565,775	+371,685	+2.45
6.	Zoo World	2,383,368	+333,692	+16.28
7.	Hotel City	357,902	+315,935	+752.82
8.	Causes	1,587,478	+258,984	+19.49
9.	YoVille	2,178,567	+225,570	+11.55
10.	Who is following you ?	2,089,271	+161,733	+8.39
11.	Friends Emotions [Emociones de Amigos]	309,669	+143,233	+86.06
12.	Bubble Island	1,019,306	+137,181	+15.55
13.	Mobile	7,529,708	+129,274	+1.75
14.	Ameba Pico	135,612	+114,427	+540.13
15.	Tiki Resort	822,493	+111,343	+15.66
16.	Family Feud	127,812	+103,425	+424.10
17.	Ninja Saga	905,202	+91,387	+11.23
18.	Country Life	3,125,005	+85,044	+2.80
19.	Sorority Life	932,140	+76,740	+8.97
20.	Your Luck [daily]	387,869	+72,806	+23.11

Facebook for iPhone has been gaining between three and four hundred thousand new DAU each week; it appears here more reliably than Mobile, which is number 13 this week, and Facebook for BlackBerry® smartphones, which was, oddly enough, number 13 last week.

Causes is probably experiencing a temporary blip, at best; over the month its DAU is down. The next non-game app, Who is following you ?, is more interesting. This is a social graphing app that asks its users to let it make a daily wall post, which is probably the source of its fairly good DAU numbers; 16 percent of its users return daily.

Friends Emotions [Emociones de Amigos] is a Spanish-language friend quiz that is also enjoying solid DAU as a percentage of monthly active users, at 21 percent. Facebook’s platform policies have been tough on this sort of quiz lately, but it’s possible the platform’s enforcement team doesn’t keep as close an eye on foreign-language apps.

Finally, the 80′s throwback Family Feud is doing pretty well, as we pointed out in our review last week. Although based on a game show, it’s not categorized as a game, and is run more like a graphics-heavy quiz.

Although Facebook’s revenues have steadily grown every year since it was founded in 2004, its valuation has seen many more ups and downs. Uncertain about the company’s future, investors and would-be investors have waffled on what they’re willing to pay for the company’s stock.

But the company started growing revenue more quickly over the course of last year, and now valuations are climbing more than ever.

Investors looking to purchase privately-traded shares of the company have been paying at share prices that imply common stock valuations at around $18 billion. This is a notable number, because it’s more than the $15 billion valuation that Microsoft purchased its preferred stock at back in 2007 — a move that was widely derided at the time.

The current value of Microsoft’s and other preferred shareholders’ Facebook stock is higher than the new common stock valuation, we can assume at this point (note that Facebook and its investors don’t discuss these numbers, because the company is privately held). Without getting into all the details, preferred stock comes with special agreements, like the ability to sell first in the event of an acquisition or public offering, or strategic relationships like what Microsoft has. See Facebook’s prominent promotion of its Bing search engine in its search results page for an example of “strategic.”

We don’t know how much common stock is being discounted from the preferred stock price — the typical practice — but if Microsoft and the other investors who got in at the $15 billion valuation were to sell their Facebook stock today, they’d almost certainly make a profit.

Valuations are growing due to statements by the company — it said it was “free cash flow positive” last fall — and from third party reports discussing growing revenues. We estimated a month ago that the company made between $600 million and $700 million last year, and could make up to $1.1 billion in revenue this year. Following the article we’ve since confirmed that estimate range with and additional source familiar with the matter.

The company’s advertising growth, in particular, is looking more legitimate as both brands and a wide variety of performance advertisers have begun spending more money on it in 2009. While the company doesn’t directly monetize the payments-driven business that’s gotten big on its developer platform, it intends to — somehow — with its Credits virtual currency.

Investors are excited, and this is now driving up expectations in a way that once again may be increasing expectations well above where Facebook is going to be in the foreseeable future. Here’s a closer look at how Facebook’s valuations have changed along with its revenues since 2004.

2004-2005

Friendster got close to buying its then-smaller rival for $10 million in its first year, according to some rumors. Facebook was just on some US college campuses then, and busy growing. 2005 saw it solidify its market more, and was valued at around $100 million by the end of the year. Aside from a few tests, its revenue streams were minimal as far as we know.

2006

The industry  started getting more interested in Facebook early on in the year. The cmopany rejected a $750 million purchase offer — one rumor said the offer was from Viacom — and was looking to sell at $2 billion, according to a report from March of that year. But around the same time it closed a round of funding that pegged the company to be worth $550 million. Another rumor around the time suggested Yahoo wanted to make a strategic investment at this time, at the $750 million valuation. By the fall of 2006, Yahoo was reportedly looking to buy Facebook for $1 billion, and was willing to go up to $1.62 billion.

Yahoo’s move was partially due to what, in hindsight, was an eerily accurate model: “they projected $608 million in Facebook revenue by 2009, growing to $969 million in 2010,” according to leaked documents. Facebook revenue estimates for the year ranged from $50 million (Yahoo’s view) to $100 million. At this time, Facebook was bringing in most of its money from banner ads, with help from early experiments within self-serve ads targeted based on information like college network.

2007

The company had begun expanding beyond colleges by this point, and it was growing fast across all demographics. Then it launched its developer platform in May, spurring the first wave of third-party applications on the site. While the platform has been through ups and downs, it was on its first wave of hype when Microsoft invested $240 million in to Facebook at a $15 billion valuation. To many industry observers, the valuation seemed way too high. When internal revenue numbers leaked a few months later — it made $150 million in 2007 — the skepticism appeared vindicated.

Microsoft, at this time, was helping to grow revenue by providing its own banner advertising on Facebook, splitting the money.

2008

The full force of the global economic recession hit Silicon Valley this year, driving down valuations for virtually every company. Facebook had projected it would grow revenues to between $300 million and $350 million by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, some early employees were leaving the company and selling vested stock to private investors. This meant private investors were trying to price Facebook’s market value — even though it was a privately-held company that was valued based on long-term potential rather than public market metrics like current cash flow. Valuation rumors started to pop up, based on the prices that some ex-employees were selling their shares for. Reports over the summer put the common stock valuation of the company at around $4 billion. Although common stock is normally discounted versus preferred stock, the disparity made the $15 billion preferred stock valuation look even less realistic.

The company ended the year with somewhere slightly less than $300 million in revenue, helped by the Microsoft deal.

2009

While rumors persisted through the first part of the year about runaway costs and low valuations, Facebook’s advertising efforts appeared to have turned the corner during the same time. Today, a year ago, the company surprised most people with an announcement that it was on track to grow revenue by 70% and be cash-flow positive by 2010. Evidence also showed that the cost of servers and other major expenses needed for its growing user base were being controlled through internal technology improvements. The company also rejected additional investment at a $4 billion valuation, we heard, even some rumors at the time were putting the valuation number even lower.

Then, in May, Facebook sold some preferred stock to Russian investor DST at an implied valuation of $10 billion, which clearly showed that the company’s value had fallen since the Microsoft deal. A short while later, the company put its long-awaited employee stock sale price into place, allowing current employees, and then former employees, to sell a portion of what they owned to DST at a common stock valuation of $6.5 billion — the value of this stock was on the rise.

The trend continued throughout the rest of the year, boosted by Facebook’s announcement in September that it had become “free cash flow positive.” The main causes: fast user growth (meaning more people to look at ads) and more brand and performance advertiser spending. We projected the year to end with Facebook making more than $550 million in revenue.

Instead, the Yahoo number from 2006 turned out to be even closer. Continued advertising growth pushed the company to between $600 million and $700 million, multiple sources have told us.

Valuations have only risen since September. The common stock valuation implied by private Facebook stock sales was reaching between $9.5 billion and $13 billion by the end of the year, according to multiple reports.

2010

Facebook’s advertising revenue appears to still be growing strong, from what we’ve been covering, and its valuations are climbing even higher. We estimate that the company will bring in up to $1.1 billion this year. Subsequent reports have quotes sources saying the company could reach $2 billion.

Valuation numbers are correspondingly off to the races. Sites that provide private stock marketplaces, including Sharespost and SecondMarket, currently show Facebook’s common stock valuation to be around $18 billion.

Facebook, being a private company, does not provide details on its revenue or expenses, so analysts are now trying to project growth in the coming years based on other information, like what portion of the brand ad market it might eventually obtain. We’ve seen estimates about what an eventual IPO in the range of $35 billion (based on the latest filings, plus guesswork) and some see it rising to be a $100 billion company in coming years — a number we last heard thrown around in 2007, and at the time, dismissed.

Sub-Zero and Wolf, makers of luxury kitchen appliances, are claiming strong results from a Facebook Page that has just under 81,000 fans. The reason, as the company tells us, is that these fans are actual customers, who already associate with the lifestyle image of the products, and who are helping to drive more business to the company.

Sub-Zero, for those not familiar, makes freezers, refrigerators and wine storage equipment; it bought cooking equipment maker Wolf in 2000, and both brands operate distinctly today.

Facebook has become the third most important non-search engine site sending traffic to the company’s site during the past six months, according to Christopher Parr, the manger of the company’s interactive marketing efforts. During this period the average time spent on the web site was 3.1 minutes, with 7.5 pages viewed. Apparently lots of people are looking at images of fridges, ranges and other products.

While Parr didn’t provide more details on how the Page is helping to drive traffic to the site, or how its prompting more sales. But the company’s overall strategy makes sense for a luxury brand on Facebook — focus on a smaller, exclusive audience, and build up their passion for your product. As with many forms of brand advertising, the goal of many Pages is to prime consumers to buy, eventually, rather than trying to get an immediate click-through to a sale.

“We’re not about having 1 million fans — we’re more about having real customers so they can talk to each other (on Facebook),” Parr tells us. “We want true Sub-Zero and Wolf fans.”

The Page was created in September of last year and really took off during the holidays, he explains. Perhaps the Page took off because more people were looking around for gift ideas, or trying to signal gift ideas to loved ones around this time?

The company has also pursued other ways of promoting the page. It sent emails to customers encouraging them to join Facebook. Then, Sub-Zero and Wolf bought Facebook ads targeted at their customers, who tend to be older and affluent, as well as their customers’/fans’ friends on Facebook. Once on Facebook, Parr tells us these fans often jump over to the main web sites after receiving information on new products, recipes, viewed or uploaded photos of Sub-Zero and Wolf kitchens.

Now the Page includes three types of fans: actual customers, people who plan to become customers and kitchen designers/architects who use these products in their work, Parr tells us.

Parr explains that, for his customer base of older and affluent individuals who are late adopters of Facebook, the email strategy worked in terms of getting more fans. Our most recent analysis of Facebook demographics found that users from 45-65 years of age made up about 20% of the social network’s population. It’s among this group that the company is apparently finding more users to purchase some of Sub-Zero and Wolf’s built-in refrigerators, wine storage and cooking equipment.

The rest of Sub-Zero and Wolf’s Page includes several photo albums featuring products, more than 100 fan uploads, content on design, products and creating an environmentally-friendly kitchen. The Page is also set to be the launching point for new content, such as outdoor grilling secrets videos, Parr adds. It’s this content, as well as the conversational tone of the Wall, that Parr says helps the Page’s fans/customers become part of the luxurious lifestyle he says embodies the Sub-Zero and Wolf brand.

For strategies to help build up a loyal following on your Page, take a look at our Facebook Marketing Bible.

Rita’s Italian Ice, a Pennsylvania-based franchise with 560 stores in 18 states, launched a Facebook promotion/contest on March 20 that has since helped the company add almost 100,000 fans, with 58,500 coming in the last week — landing the page on at 17 on our weekly list of top 20 growing Facebook Pages.

The company’s PEEPS Fandemonium Facebook Contest, running through April 4, has helped the Page reach 201,400 fans. Partnering with the makers of marshmallow candies PEEPS, Rita’s is awarding a year’s supply of free ice to a fan a day until the end of the contest, as well as a free gift bag for every 1,000 fans that includes free ice coupons, a tote bag, hat and t-shirts.

Rita’s Director of Corporate Communications Kelly Banaszak tells us that, although the Facebook Page was created a year ago, the company’s fan base didn’t “explode” until a free year’s supply of Italian ice was on the table. Combining the launch of the Fandemonium contest with a watershed annual event for Rita’s — the first day of spring, March 20, when the company gives away 1.4 million free cups of ice — Banaszak says Rita’s was able to encourage more than 1 million actual customers to visit its Facebook Page.

Each of the 1.4 million customers were told on March 20 about the Facebook contest upon receiving their free ice.

“We created the promotion to encourage customers to go online and become a fan of Rita’s on Facebook because we have a lot of avid fans of the brand, we wanted to give them an opportunity to interact with our brand online —to extend that store experience,” Banaszak tells us.

Entering the contest requires users to visit the PEEPS Ice tab where they enter name, email and opt-in to the contest, then have the chance to publish this fact to their Wall; they may also choose their “PEEPS-o-nality” from several PEEPS caricatures, and also publish this to their Wall, giving the company two chances to spread the word about the contest via its entrants. For those who want more information the WNMR (World Needs More Rita’s) tab helps users find locations, merchandise and find information about other promotions.

Banaszak says the company wanted to extend that success to Facebook both because it’s a popular site, and also because Rita’s has been focusing its marketing resources on social networking sites like Facebook, as well as Twitter and YouTube. The company even hired a social networking coordinator last year to better manage the company’s new outreach efforts.

We’ll be tracking how the campaign goes through the 4th. For more on using sweepstakes as part of a campaign, check out our Facebook Marketing Bible.

Beyond the regular mix of celebrities and social games this week, our list of the 20 Facebook Pages that gained the most new fans includes supporters and opponents of the newly-passed US health care bill.

The data is drawn from our independent PageData tool, which tracks fan page growth over time.

Top Gainers This Week

	Name	Fans	Gain	Gain, %
1.	Texas Hold’em Poker	15,438,993	+700,974	+4.76
2.	Mafia Wars	10,934,347	+337,842	+3.19
3.	Being Conservative	465,737	+236,370	+103.05
4.	adidas Originals	2,665,607	+197,018	+7.98
5.	EA SPORTS	168,880	+158,753	+1,567.62
6.	Mozilla Firefox	1,160,859	+138,803	+13.58
7.	Justin Bieber	2,439,641	+138,718	+6.03
8.	Converse	2,468,788	+132,863	+5.69
9.	The Artifice	3,310,761	+120,578	+3.78
10.	Lady Gaga	5,935,431	+110,310	+1.89
11.	Facebook	7,870,233	+99,434	+1.28
12.	Starbucks	6,421,502	+90,121	+1.42
13.	Facebook Site Governance	897,579	+79,676	+9.74
14.	YouTube	4,586,512	+73,879	+1.64
15.	Türk Bayrağı	3,344,660	+71,364	+2.18
16.	Barack Obama	7,947,639	+62,102	+0.79
17.	Rita’s Italian Ice	197,268	+58,513	+42.17
18.	McDonald’s	1,967,866	+57,792	+3.03
19.	The Twilight Saga	5,378,973	+56,428	+1.06
20.	Megan Fox	6,337,588	+54,386	+0.87

Zynga’s Texas Hold’em Poker with 15.4 million fans was first on the list and Mafia Wars was second with just under 11 million, the two have been making almost predictable appearances here for most of this year. We noticed last week that Poker Blitz, another Zynga game, was being advertised on Texas Hold’em Poker’s Page, and this week its Page was touting other promotions; it’s interesting that, although these two games are definitely on top right now, Zynga is making sure to keep promoting them both with contests (a trip for two to the Bahamas), giveaways (win $25 million in chips) and new additions to their games (Mafia Wars game cards and the return of robbing).

Third place is a limited liability company (LLC) called Being Conservative, based in South Carolina, with little other information available about it other than “We are a group of conservatives dedicated to decreasing the size and scope of government…we oppose unfair and confiscatory tax policies.” This Page grew by 236,370 fans in the past week (it only has 465,700 fans total) with one big jump the day President Barack Obama signed the domestic health reform bill. Status updates on the Page indicate that the primary goal is to repeal this health care bill and the landing Page is anti-Obama (literally with the red circle and slash in it) and asks visitors to “Repeal Obama-Care.”

It’s not surprising that, resulting from such a large change in U.S. domestic policy there would be a backlash, but given about one-third of its fans joined in a single day, whether such growth is sustainable to next week is another matter, unless they’re advertising. This group is also selling the “Reagan for President” t-shirts that we’ve separately seen featured on Facebook ads.

On the other end of the spectrum, President Obama’s Facebook Page grew by 62,100 fans to almost 8 million, 29,000 of whom joined the day he signed the bill. YouTube’s Page took number 14 this week with almost 74,000 new fans, people viewing videos related to health care reform (part of many campaigns pro and con) might have contributed to its growth, since the Page shows no other reason except maybe South by Southwest videos.

The Page for Adidas Originals was fourth, adding 197,000 fans, most of who (173,500) joined within two days, apparently a Page consolidation. Fifth was EA Sports, which also had a Page with flat growth until three days added 158,400 fans, the vast majority of this Page’s growth last week.

Mozilla Firefox’s effort to get fans involved with spreading the word about its products seems to be working; the Page was on our list at sixth this week, adding 138,800 fans. At seventh was teen musician Justin Bieber, who is appearing on American TV shows and whose album was released last week; he added 138,700 fans to his new total of 2.4 million. Converse shoe company was on the list again this week at number 8, The Artifice showed steady growth to 3.3 million fans and Lady Gaga turned 24 this week while on her world tour and added 110,300 fans to take number 10.

Facebook had two Pages on the list: Facebook at number 11 and Facebook Site Governance at 13. Facebook has almost 8 million fans and showed steady growth while the Site Governance Page grew dramatically over the weekend to the tune of 71,000 fans, probably because of the first status update since December (remember the big privacy changes?). Last Thursday, Page administrators announced proposed changes to the privacy policy and statement of rights and responsibilities, which we wrote about.

Food was also on the list this week: Starbucks at number 12, Rita’s Italian Ice at 17 and McDonald’s eighteenth. Starbucks added 90,100 fans to grow to 6.4 million steadily over the past week. Rita’s is running a free ice cream for a year promotion that started March 20 through April 4 and grew by 58,500 (it only has 197,200 so that’s a big chunk). Finally, McDonald’s Facebook Page grew by almost 58,000 and has just under 2 million fans, but we couldn’t tell exactly why they were growing.

A few random Pages rounded out the list.

The Turkish national flag (Türk Bayrağı) Page added 71,000 fans to land at number 15; the Page has 3.3 million fans, as last on our list in February and might be growing because admins seem to have added a “share” function to the landing Page.

The Twilight Saga’s Page added 56,400 fans, maybe because of merchandise or award show promotions and Megan Fox’s Page was number 20 this week with 54,300 new fans, and as with most of her appearances here, it seems like it’s because she’s Megan Fox rather than anything else.

Facebook is changing some terminology around how people become fans of its Pages product, a move that could be somewhat confusing but has apparently worked well in the company’s tests.

“People will soon connect with your Brand Pages by clicking ‘Like’ rather than ‘Become a Fan,” the company recently began telling advertising agencies about the change, according to Facebook documents obtained by ClickZ and MediaMemo. ”People already ‘Like’ their friends’ status updates, photos and links everyday. In fact, people click “Like” almost two times more than they click “Become a Fan” everyday,” Facebook’s update days.

The changes are coming “soon” although a timetable has not been finalized and neither have all the details. The new term appears to affect advertising for Pages on Facebook, including both performance ads and brand-focused marketing ads, as you can see from the screenshots below. The company doesn’t say how other instances of “Become a Fan” will be changed, such as the wording for the “Become a Fan” button on Pages themselves.

One reason people click “like” more often than “Become a Fan” is probably due to the fact that it already means something else, as Facebook notes — that users are registering their approval of content that appears in their news feeds, walls, etc.. However, the reason that anything appears to them on Facebook is that they have already decided it should, through friending somebody, becoming a fan of a Page, etc. In this case, of course, Facebook is changing the definition of “like” so that it doesn’t just mean interacting with content. Now it means becoming a fan — an equivalent move, theoretically, would be “liking” somebody in order to become their friend, rather than literally requesting to become their friend.

So, with the change, users might click “like” a few times on Page ads, then discover that they’ve become a fan of when they thought they were just registering approval. But Facebook has already addressed this point in the FAQ in the document:

Q: How will users differentiate “Like” to connect to a Page, versus “Like” to show positive sentiments to an ad?

A: Users will understand the distinction through explicit social context, messaging and aesthetic differences. An Engagement ad unit, capable of making connections, will feature the “Like” button and show social context above it such as, “John Doe and 3 of your friends like [Page Name].” Standard ad units, not capable of making connections, will simply feature the word “Like” by itself, and may show social context above it that says “John Doe and 3 of your friends like this ad.”

Facebook’s stat — “people click “Like” almost two times more than they click “Become a Fan” everyday” — suggests the company has been testing out the changes and is happy with the user response so far.

High-end juice maker Odwalla is starting a new marketing effort, called “Campaign Against Ordinary” that it has designed around live music and Facebook. The intention appears to be getting consumers associating the drinks with popular musicians, thereby giving the product broader appeal.

The focus will be its “Living Flavor Vending Machine,” a play on words that actually means “part innovative sampling booth, part performance stage and part advocate podium,” rather than an actual vending machine, according to Odwalla’s press release. It will “feature DJs, musicians, films, filmmakers, storytellers and open mic auditions” — and users will be able to audition on Facebook to appear in it, starting later this year.

The company isn’t providing us with any details beyond the release, though, so here’s what else we know. The Coachella music festival, happening April 16-18 near Los Angeles, will host the first part of the campaign. But the full concept won’t go live until the other two festivals it’s planning to be at, Bonnaroo and Outside Lands.

Odwalla is drumming up immediate enthusiasm on its Page by giving out free tickets to Coachella every day ahead of the festival. The contest was recently announced in a Facebook status update where fans could click on a link to Odwalla’s web site to enter.

Overall, the company has just over 19,700 fans on Facebook and has already begun to promote the Coachella festival, as evident with one of several status updates today, “In honor of Coachella, tell us the best concert souvenir you’ve scored: Signed drum stick? Set list? Pic with band? Can’t discuss it – my mom might be reading this?” Regular status updates, fun in tone, have generated dozens of comments/likes and fans seem pretty enthusiastic about the product. Compared to many brands, it’s off to a good start in terms of building buzz on its Page.

Everything related to the campaign is being promoted in its Fresh Stuff tab, along wth its new Pink Poetry drink. The company has also created several photo albums of its line of drinks and uploaded four videos, most of which are commercials.

Odwalla will eventually add a feature to its Page that allows fans at Coachella with “particularly interesting or unusual talents” to upload videos to Facebook for a chance to perform at the “machine” during the following music festivals, Bonnaroo and Outside Lands.

The Facebook-live music concept reminds us of a campaign we wrote about earlier this month where Levi’s cross-promoted its presence at the South by Southwest (SXSW) music festival in Austin to Facebook. A long-time sponsor of a popular side-stage at the festival, this was the first year where it used Facebook to promote bands and the rest of the event — and with good early results, from what we saw.

Odwalla also notes that “the campaign will be supported by Facebook advertising, in-store POS materials, and public relations activities.” Levi’s told us that one lesson from its experience is to focus advertising on the week before the event, as this will get viral buzz building among users via Facebook’s news feed and other features. This may be Odwalla’s strategy and we’ll be watching to track the campaign’s progress.

For more on using Facebook together with events and bigger marketing campaigns, be sure to check out our Facebook Marketing Bible.