Budweiser is one of the most ubiquitous brands in the U.S. — and the company seems to be doing its best to make this true on Facebook too. It has over a dozen Facebook Pages for its products, including Pages for specific products, and smaller areas like Denver and Quebec. While we’ve previously reported that creating niche Pages can boost the feeling of community on Facebook, it seems like Budweiser has taken this to such an extreme that it could be diluting its presence. Or, maybe it’s tapping in to a deeper sense of identity that fans have for particular regions and products.

We asked Budweiser to talk to us about their Facebook strategy but didn’t hear back this week. Here’s a quick look at what we see.

Budweiser’s main Page has fewer than 283,000 fans and consistently generates hundreds or thousands of likes/comments. That’s still not a huge number of fans, considering that it’s one of the most popular beers in the U.S. and part of an international beverage group with properties all over the world.

But when you take into account that this Page is joined on Facebook by a Budweiser Select Page with 3,500 fans, Budweiser’s Better World with 915 fans, Select 55 with 82,500 fans, Bud American Ale with 16,000 fans, Bud Denver with 2,000 fans, Bud Light with almost 421,000, Bud Light Golden Wheat with 18,700 fans, Bud Light Latino with 12,800, Bud Light Lime with 117,700 fans, and Pages for Bud Canada, Quebec, UK or the Czech Republic – to name a few — you quickly get a better sense for how big Bud’s presence actually is on Facebook.

Take one example, Budweiser’s Pages for Bud Lime Quebec with 35,600 fans, Bud Light Lime Canada with 82,400 versus Bud Light Lime with 117,700. All these Pages are created to promote the same basic product to different geographic audiences, but for a total of about 235,700 fans — a large portion of whom all speak English.

The Pages for Budweiser with 283,000 fans, Budweiser Canada with 102,000 fans and Budweiser UK with 33,800 fans likewise divides the brand. Why? One reason is that the company could be trying to track how Pages do as defined by these criteria. Given the fact that Bud Light Lime is so big in Canada, for example, it might make sense for Budweiser to spend extra resources engaging with these users. Another reason might be that it already has marketing campaigns tied to particular products and regions, that it is tying these pages to.

Each Page provides tailored content, including unique profiles, and original photos and videos related to the product and brand. The fact that fans can upload their own photos and videos to the Page further promotes the particular focus.

They each have region-specific promotions — an especially good reason to create separate Pages. As different countries have different rules, Budweiser is avoiding having fans get disappointed by not being able to enter in to contests intended for others. FIFA Cup soccer tickets in the United Kingdom are not available to US users, for example.

Bud also appears to be catering to groups within countries. The Pages for Canada and Quebec’s Bud Lime products are essentially the same, except one is in English and one is in French. Given the strong sense of pride that many Canadians have in speaking French, the specialization makes sense. However, the Bud Light Lime Page hasn’t even been updated since December, so it’s not clear how the company is taking advantage of that particular page.

Although we don’t have a clear view into the results Budweiser is getting as a result of all this diversity, the engagement suggests the results are worth the extra work of creating and managing so many Pages. Each organization needs to think hard about this sort of strategy — given the overall marketing goals, when does it make sense to have a single page for all fans versus separate pages for fan sub-groups. For tips on how to succeed here, be sure to check out our Facebook Marketing Bible.

LOLapps is on a roll with its quizzes. Last week, the company had four quizzes on our list of the top 20 emerging Facebook apps, counted as those still under a million monthly active users. This week LOLapps has raised the stakes to five quiz apps — all but one is different from last week — and overall they’re in higher positions on the list.

You can spot them by the dotted box icon on each and their badly- or un-punctuated names: What age will you have your 1st baby ???, I can guess your name., What Spirit is taking care of you, the whole name of the person who loves you!!!(100% real) and THE SEX QUIZ. Four more LOLapps quizzes are in positions 20-40 on our full AppData list.

What is LOLapps’ secret sauce? Well, it’s not making the quizzes itself. They’re all coming from Quiz Creator, which lets users brew their own quizzes. With users churning out quizzes for free, it’s no surprise that a few have become successful.

On the other hand, Quiz Creator isn’t the only app of its type; there’s more to the growth. The other key seems to be clever packaging by LOLapps. After each quiz, users are asked if they want to know what friends got — of course, their friend probably hasn’t taken the quiz, so it’s effectively an invitation.

And instead of shuffling users off through a wall of ads after the quiz, LOLapps  directs them to more quizzes. There’s also a “quiz profile” and the ability to look at which quizzes friends actually have taken, creating an OKCupid-style community. Nevermind that the quizzes themselves are mostly low quality; LOLapps has done a good job on the overall structure around them.

Enough about quizzes. Here’s the rest of the list:

	Name	MAU	Gain	Gain, %
1.	Benzerini Bul	813,872	+648,041	+79.62
2.	Translations	368,714	+363,867	+98.69
3.	Zoo Paradise	818,347	+341,073	+41.68
4.	MyHeritage Celebrity Look-alikes	816,463	+303,767	+37.21
5.	What age will you have your 1st baby ???	943,383	+297,391	+31.52
6.	I can guess your name.	938,932	+257,840	+27.46
7.	What Spirit is taking care of you	575,754	+253,334	+44.00
8.	the whole name of the person who loves you!!!(100% real)	851,958	+252,842	+29.68
9.	Music Pets	741,986	+243,034	+32.75
10.	Jumping Dog	919,413	+235,639	+25.63
11.	Anket	780,354	+233,893	+29.97
12.	When Will You Die	693,122	+226,207	+32.64
13.	Ameba Pico	416,074	+211,186	+50.76
14.	Top Stalkers	637,479	+204,267	+32.04
15.	do u know txt language???	730,298	+201,239	+27.56
16.	THE SEX QUIZ	645,544	+188,384	+29.18
17.	The quiz that sends you mad!!!!!	730,022	+186,778	+25.59
18.	Puzzle Bobble	628,916	+182,865	+29.08
19.	CBSSports.com Brackets	238,441	+181,258	+76.02
20.	Bracket Challenge by Citizen Sports	618,602	+181,190	+29.29

The top app is actually a Turkish language offering, Benzerini Bul. It appears to also be a quiz app of some sort, but we’re not quite sure (readers are welcome to chime in if they know). Following it is Translations, an in-house Facebook app that’s just mis-reporting; it hasn’t really grown.

Zoo Paradise is the latest game from CrowdStar, but despite its presence on the list, it’s not doing outstandingly well so far for a game launched by a big company. The top ten also includes Music Pets and Jumping Dog, but we’ll cover the games in more depth over at Inside Social Games.

In what appears to be the last of several conclusions to a drawn-out class action lawsuit regarding Facebook’s now- defunct Beacon advertising program, a judge has approved a contested settlement, as Wired reports. Facebook will provide $9.5 million to create a “Digital Trust Fund” dedicated to studying online privacy (minus $3 million for legal fees).

Beacon automatically showed users’ activity on other web sites to their friends on Facebook. One plaintiff had bought a diamond for his wife, and she found out about it before he intended her to because Beacon immediately shared the purchase with her. Facebook stopped promoting Beacon years ago, but only officially shut it down last year as part of the terms of the settlement last fall.

However, lawyers for the plaintiffs contested the settlement, in part because it allows Facebook to retain a seat on the foundation’s board — they’re concerned the company will be able to influence how the foundation approaches the issues in their favor. But U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg ruled that “[t]here has been no pervasive showing that the foundation will be a mere publicity tool for Facebook.”

The trust will ““fund and sponsor programs designed to educate users, regulators and enterprises regarding critical issues relating to protection of identity and personal information online through user control, and to protect users from online threats.”

Facebook has become a place where one can not only connect with friends and get free food, but now thanks to Second Porch, you can also book a vacation home. Portland-based Second Porch secured $1 million in Series-A funding Wednesday, led by the Oregon Angel Fund, which will help the company expand its vacation home rental/home exchange markets, according to its press release.

Second Porch offers a nice looking free Facebook application used to help people either find a vacation rental or put their property up for rent on the service, representing a significant financial commitment on the part of its users. Part of what Second Porch represents is a growing trust users have for Facebook as a place not only to socialize. We’ve previously reported some people have even considered purchasing modular homes on Facebook, and Second Porch is yet another way users may utilize the social network to make sizable financial decisions.

Second Porch says bridging the gap between the need for vacation rentals and social networks is beneficial to both parties. “The typical Facebook personal network comprised of ‘friends of friends’ reaches almost 17,000 people, all of whom can be vouched for by a friend in common. For a homeowner, this is an obvious opportunity to find prospective guests to rent to with a higher level of comfort and peace of mind,” says chief executive Brent Hieggelke.

On Facebook, Second Porch currently has 1,100 fans and 2,450 users. These numbers seem low, but given the point of the app, size and quantity of deals are what matter — not getting as many users as possible. The app is easy to navigate and includes: links to either search for homes or list homes, see customer reviews, see news stories about Second Porch, a link to invite Facebook friends to use the app and view listings posted by those friends.

Several search options are available to those who would like to find a home using Second Porch, which may be done by geographic location via Google Maps or in list form. Users may adjust search options of geographic location, rentals listed by friends, whether these properties are for rent/trade, the number of bedrooms and nightly rate. Additionally, those searching for a rental may ask their Facebook friends and other users to help source a suitable vacation rental via publishing to your news feed.

Adding a vacation home to Second Porch’s Facebook listings is easy and the company promises that it shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes. Those wishing to place their home for rent simply decide whether it’s for rent/trade/both, choose whether to share the listing exclusively with their Facebook friends or everyone, then enter their email, location information and details about the property.

Second Porch asks pretty detailed questions about the properties placed for rent, not simply whether it’s a house/condo/etc., but also the number of bedrooms/bathrooms, and other details, such as whether the property is family/pet-friendly, smoking, has a pool/cable, accessible by wheelchair, along with other accommodations. Up to nine photos may be uploaded of the property to accompany the description. Because Second Porch is an app on Facebook, there are some unique features available to users, who may publish using the service to their Wall, accumulate followers to their homes, follow homes they may want to rent in the future and get to know those they are renting from/to in a more personal way.

Second Porch attempts to meet both the rise of social networking and the growth of online travel arrangements with its new app, and given the ease of use and integration with Facebook, seems to do a good job at it.

Facebook has begun sending out a weekly email to Page owners, sharing a few data points — and upsells. The point is to both show owners how well the Page is currently doing, and provide links to Facebook resources.

The three data points are:

1. # new fans your Page got this week
2. # interactions (likes and comments) your Page’s content got this week
3. # visits (traffic) your Page got this week

In addition, Facebook is encouraging users to post more updates, visit their Page Insights page, and buy Facebook ads in the email. That last one is especially important: advertising for things like Pages is an increasingly important part of Facebook’s business. This email is another way for the company to get more people buying ads.

Facebook also sends weekly birthday emails to users who want to receive updates on friends with birthdays each week.

As Facebook promotions grow in popularity, it’s no longer simply big corporate names that have jumped on the social media bandwagon. As we’ve previously reported, several companies have stepped in to help small and medium businesses make the most of their Facebook presence with promotional tools. Most recently, Fan Appz launched a Professional version of its tool kit for smaller businesses to better engage their fans on Facebook. This week Wildfire Interactive rolled out a new sweepstakes service that allows companies of any size to take advantage of this type of promotion.

The sweepstakes service aims to make running these promotions easier by partnering with Publisher’s Clearing House to administer the prizes, taking the burden of this follow-through off of the companies, and allowing them to simply design the contest and collect the entries.

“We’re making the sweepstakes process that generally takes several weeks to build and a lot of money, and turning it into something they can get up and running in a number of minutes,” Wildfire Interactive’s Victoria Ransom tells us, noting that while the company does work with larger clients, it also wanted to open the door to Facebook marketing for smaller businesses. “We are trying to provide a scalable service because we wanted to provide an affordable and effective way for businesses of any size to use social media marketing.”

Wildfire Interactive has provided services to allow businesses to create their own social media marketing with photo contests, coupons, quizzes and other campaigns for both Facebook and Twitter and this week’s sweepstakes service makes running these more advanced promotions easier, Ransom said. Publisher’s Clearing House plays the vital role of providing the prize (such as a $10,000 cash prize or dream vacation), the sweepstakes rules, drawing the winners and ultimately delivering the prize to the winners.

Ransom tells us that the sweepstakes service allows companies to focus on engaging with their fans no matter what size they may be.

“Sweepstakes is one of the most effective ways to get people to engage with your brand,” she tells us. “It’s a great way to generate likes, get people to sign up for your newsletter, get them to become fans.”

Businesses that subscribe to Wildfire Interactive’s new sweepstakes solution can do so for as little as 99 cents a day, although services with more features that allow for more creativity cost more, Ransom explains.

After a company sets up an account with Wildfire Interactive they can set up a basic sweepstakes and publish it on their fan Page. This automatically creates an application for them to collect entries. This sweepstakes may then be promoted on the company’s Facebook Page and web site, ultimately running on a microsite on their Facebook Connect-enabled web site in order to comply with Facebook’s sweepstakes rules, she said.

The sweepstakes feature is set to be offered for free to Wildfire Interactive customers until June 15, thereafter a per-entry fee will be charged.

Sweepstakes on Facebook are growing more complicated, and as a result, several companies have stepped in to provide businesses with tools to run them in keeping with Facebook’s rules. It’s likely that, in the future, other companies will follow Wildfire Interactive and Fan Appz’s lead and begin to tailor their services to smaller businesses, as recent studies and industry experience has been showing that engaging fans via sweepstakes and other Facebook promotions can be beneficial to any business’ bottom line. For more on how to navigate the increasing complexities of Facebook Pages and sweepstakes, check out the Facebook Marketing Bible, our comprehensive guide for marketers and businesses seeking to better understand and utilize Facebook’s full marketing capabilities.

Today we’re taking a look at Africa’s growth on Facebook, drawn from our Global Monitor statistics for February. Africa is by far the world’s smallest region in terms of its total number of Facebook users, coming in almost even with the Arabian Peninsula despite a huge disparity in total population.

Below we’ve listed the only six countries on the whole continent that are growing significantly. As you can see, the top two are both in northern Africa, part of the culturally-interrelated Maghreb region (we’ve exempted Egypt).

Despite having higher growth and a few more users than Tunisia, Morocco has less than half the penetration — only 4.4 percent of its internet users are on Facebook. Long-term, it seems like these two could grow into significant markets. Their huge neighbors, Algeria and Libya, don’t have many internet users and aren’t tracked by Facebook at all (we draw these stats from its advertising tool).

The third-fastest grower in sub-Saharan Africa is Nigeria. This country’s Facebook user base is growing slowly. What you can’t see here is that its penetration is about as low as it gets, at 0.7 percent. Ghana and Kenya aren’t much better off, while South Africa has about 5 percent of its internet users online — no doubt advantaged by the country’s many English speakers.

It’s easy to blame the relatively limited internet access in Africa for its slow growth, but from the low penetration even among internet users we can see that there’s more to the story. Language is likely one problem; Facebook isn’t likely to get translated into hundreds of African regional dialects any time soon.

The continent also tends to have more mobile users, who might not have an easy time using Facebook. But this could be changing, and driving more growth in the future. Facebook has been pushing out many new mobile features intended to help more people access the site more often. And, in December, Opera reported that Facebook is the most popular service accessed through its Mini mobile browser.

Here are all six:

Taken as a whole, Africa has only 2.6 percent penetration on Facebook, but grew 5.6 percent in February. As of March 1st, it had about 9.9 million users on Facebook, out of a total population of 375 million. The data above, by the way, all comes from our in-depth Global Monitor report, which provides 164 pages of growth statistics and forward projections for 98 countries and five world regions.

Last Year’s Defending Champ

The number one bracket application from last year got off to a great start again this March. Watercooler’s 2010 Bracket Challenge is close to 300,000 users about 24 hours before tip-off of the first game (not counting the play-in). The app allows you to invite friends to your own pool or search for existing pools, some of which already number in the thousands.

Pools can be set up as open or invite-only, and there are places to post comments (talk trash), track your brackets, and more. Watercooler is also sponsoring a contest for each level of pool (10-25 members, 26-50 mebmers, 50 or more members) with a prize being awarded to the top bracket from each level.

The Player With The Most Game

CBSSports.com has its own bracket app, and the network has the added advantage of owning the licensing for the live feeds of every game, which they’ll be streaming through a dedicated Facebook page. Once you’ve signed on to set up your March Madness bracket or brackets, you’ll have the option of fanning the NCAA March Madness On Demand page, which is where you’ll be able to watch every tourney game live, as well as have the ability to talk a little trash with friends, other team supporters or rival fans.

The network is also offering $10,000 to the top points-getter, and just filling out a bracket enters you into the contest. While the CBSSports.com bracket interface is not as smooth or refined as the Watercooler app, the facts that it’s associated with being able to view the actual games and that anyone can win the $10K have helped the application reach close to 250,000 fans, with a growth curve that’s as steep as Watercooler’s app.

The Biggest So Far This Year

The prospect of winning $5K, and an easy-to-navigate interface, are among the incentives that has made the Bracket Challenge by Citizens Sports app the most popular so far for this year’s tournament, with about 620,000 active users. There’s no need to round up a group of friends or join one of the thousands of existing pools to get a shot at some dough, with every bracket eligible for the $5,000 prize for the best picks. In addition, users can participate in the Bracket Challenge on the go by downloading a free iPhone app that allows them to see their brackets, track scores and more.

The application has a few added extras, such as sponsorship by Miller Lite, which runs a banner ad on the dashboard inviting users to fan the Miller Lite Facebook page. There’s also a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit bracket, which invited fans to vote on the best swimsuit picture, as well as offering galleries of famous pictures from over the years. Fans can also participate in or contribute to team and tourney trivia questions, and there are live updates of all games throughout the tournament.

Large and small organizations looking to reach Facebook through its self-serve performance advertising tool will now see a few upgrades to the second step in the ad tool user interface.

For example, now you can clearly select “All” instead of male, female, or both male and female for some targeting options. These include Sex and Interested In, and Relationship categories. Some users do not provide this information on Facebook, so the “All” option allows users to target these people.

Facebook has also changed the terminology of targeting words from the Google-esque “keywords” to the more fitting “Likes & Interests.” The new phrase more accurately describes the fact that ads are targeted on declared profile information and related data, rather than what users are searching for (like how AdWords works).

There are a few other tweaks, that heavy users will appreciate. The interface appears to be slightly bigger than before. The number of users targeted in each campaign is displayed on a right-hand counter that scrolls along with where the user is on the targeting form.

Over the course of the last couple years, Facebook’s approach to Platform governance has been consistently evolving. In the beginning, Facebook tried a quantitative stick-based approach based on user feedback – if enough invitations and notifications got reported as spammy, those channels got cut off. Then, it added a carrot with the creation of the “Verified Apps” program, but later shut it down after encountering some difficulties with that approach. Now, it’s taking a more manual approach, building out its policy enforcement team to manually review apps, dole out punishments, and weed out bad developers.

Update: We incorrectly assumed that the below message was posted by Facebook. Facebook says the message was actually put there by the developer, and has since disabled the application for multiple policy violations. We apologize for any confusion.

In the latest Platform policy enforcement experiment that we’ve seen, Facebook is now putting apps on public “probation.” When users visit an app that’s on probation, a big message will appear at the top of the canvas page that reads, “Application on probation: Due to numerous user complaints, this application has been put on a probationary period. If you feel there is content that is violating the Facebook policy please report it,” with a big “Report” button right at the top. We’ve asked Facebook for more details, and will let you know when we have more specifics on this.