Enterprise social media marketing platform and service provider Syncapse has closed a $25 million Series C funding round with ABS Capital. CEO Michael Scissons tells us the money will go towards accelerating development of its platform and expanding its global services group.

Syncapse is one of the biggest companies in the Page management, custom app development, and social measurement space, with over 150 employees, including over 40 in Europe. The Syncapse Platform, formerly SocialTalk, lets clients build and manage Facebook Pages, Facebook applications, YouTube channels, Twitter accounts, blogs, and handle conversation management, compliance, influence management, and measurement.

In September, Syncapse purchased Facebook app developer Nudge. That team is now building app templates and custom apps for Syncapse’s clients.

Scissons believes that the world’s largest corporations and brands want to work with a reputable company with global presence, opposed to the many smaller companies moving into the space. He explained it took his company a year to get situated in Europe, so he believes the high barrier to the enterprise industry will allow Syncapse to repel the multitude of new entrants.

Clients aren’t signing long term deals with companies like Syncapse because there’s still a lot of potential for disruption. However, Scissions thinks the funding will help it become more established, answer more client needs across channels, and emerge as a leader in social marketing regardless of whether its on Facebook or forthcoming services.

When asked whether Syncapse would consider adding Facebook Ads API services to its offering, as Experian and Vitrue recently have, he explained that he believes most corporations and brands want an agency to handle all their advertising, and so it won’t move in that direction at this time.

With Facebook now allowing Pages to use iframe tab applications, 2011 could be a healthy year for funding and acquisitions in the Page management and social marketing industry as companies look to add iframe apps and other services to their offering. Scissons agrees, but thinks these companies will mostly focus on smaller brands and local businesses. Meanwhile, we see Syncapse and other larger platform and service providers like Buddy Media winning the cash-flush multinationals.

Today and tomorrow, 40 companies are introducing new or revamped products at San Francisco’s Launch conference. Here, we’ll review the products with significant Facebook integrations, both good and bad, and how the companies fit into the Facebook development ecosystem.

Two standouts were Jibe that turns a user’s Facebook friends into references that can move their job application to the top of the stack, and Chute that lets users quickly backup or share multiple photos from their mobile device.

Jibe – Mobile Job Applications with Social References

Jibe is a job search and application platform that lets users append references of their Facebook and LinkedIn connections who are associated with the job to their resumes. For instance, users could attach links to profiles of friends who currently work at the employer or who work in the same space.

Employers pay Jibe to bring them high quality applicants, and users can pay for credits that allow them to apply to jobs more frequently instead of earning credits by sharing jobs or the site with friends.

At Launch, Jibe announced the released of a mobile-optimized site that allows users to complete the entire search and application from their mobile device, as well as call contacts they’re including as references.

Though the service has a deep Facebook integration, including registration, login, and the ability to pull information like education and work history, none of a user’s other Facebook data is shared with potential employers. Only links to the profiles of the selected references are included with the resume.

Users in more prestigious industries may want to take more care with their job applications and as such wouldn’t want to use a mobile interface. However, there is a market for users who want to quickly apply to lots of jobs, but still leverage their social network. Jibe will be competing with services including BranchOut, Pursuit, and Work For Us that concentrate on using social to power job discovery, rather than to increase the liklihood that an application will be noticed.

Disconnect – Web Browsing Privacy Protection

Disconnect is a Chrome, RockMelt and Safari browser extension the blocks websites from tracking your habits or using your personal information from Facebook, Google, and other services. Facebook’s social plugins, ads by OpenX, and other panels that require user data appear as opaque blue boxes unless a user hovers over them to see the publisher and clicks to reveal the content.

The product appeals to both less savvy users who are scared about data leaks they don’t understand, as well as very savvy users who know exactly what data they want kept private. Disconnect’s founder, former Google engineer Brian Kennish, says the company could make money by layering premium services over the free core product.

Disconnect accomplishes its task elegantly, allowing users to easily tell what data the sites they visit are requesting, and opt in or out of providing that data. There are tools such as ReclaimPrivacy to help users protect their privacy within Facebook, but fewer that concentrate on how Facebook data is used by third-party websites. The challenge for Disconnect will be acquiring enough users who are willing to pay.

Appconomy Group{in} – Cross-Social Platform Groups for Mobile

Appconomy’s Group{in} is a mobile app that aggregates content from Facebook Groups, Twitter, LinkedIn, email, phone, and SMS into a mobile app to reduce friction from switching between these mediums.

Users can read and publish updates from and to these mediums, private message group members, and receive notifications about new content. For businesses, Group{in} can also hook into CRM systems to bring customers into groups.

CEO and co-founder Brian Magierski said the service will help people who have friends who aren’t on Facebook, but the conference’s judges explained that this is a rapidly shrinking demographic. It also lacks several features available on the networks it aggregates from. There’s a lot of competition in the groups space, and by not focusing squarely on one use case and doing that best there’ll be no core audience with which to gain traction.

Chute – Mobile Photo Backup and Sharing

Chute is a mobile app that allows users to easily backup and share photos from their mobile device. It protects users from losing their media if their device is broken, lost, or stolen, and removes the friction associated with uploading mobile photos to one’s computer. Photos can be viewed on the Chute mobile app, website, or desktop app as well social sites and services including Facebook, Twitter, and Picasa.

Chute also provides an API so other applications can integrate content uploaded to Chute. Monetization possibilities include charging users for storage space.

As content creation and sharing applications like Instagram proliferate, users need a better way to protect the photos they’re taking. Many users end up with hundreds of photos on their mobile devices because they’re not backed up, slowing down their devices. Chute allows users to save and remove these photos in order to get to “photo-zero”, similar to the concept of inbox-zero or having no unorganized emails.

For Facebook users, the ability to drag to select multiple photos and share them with friends is a big improvement over Facebook’s native apps that only allow users to share one photo at a time. With clear value for users and the fact that it complements the rapidly growing mobile content creation app space, Chute has a lot of potential.

Millions of websites and social games have implemented Facebook’s Like button social plugin, yet relatively few are taking advantage of the capability to publish news feed stories to users that click buttons that represent real-world objects. In an effort to increase awareness of this option, Facebook posted to the Developers Blog explaining three ways admins can publish to their Like buttons, including through the new “Use Facebook as Page” feature.

The blog post, and our own conversations with Open Graph page owners, indicate that many web publishers, brands, and game developers don’t know that when users click their Open Graph Like buttons on real-world objects, they’re not only creating a link back to the content on their wall, but are also subscribing to future news feed updates. This option, launched at last year’s f8, allows admins to engage a subset of their audience with highly relevant updates.

Note that Like buttons that have the meta tag og:type set to “Article” — those for digital content such as news articles, blog posts, photos, videos, and in some cases, digital representations of retail items — do not have publishing rights and do not appear in the Interests section of a user’s profile.

For instance, film site IMDB has Like buttons on every film, character, actor, and more on their website. It provides news and reviews of a wide variety of films, from family films to horror movies. If the IMDB Facebook Page posted an updated about a new list of top 10 children’s films, only a small part of their audience would find it interesting, while a large portion of their audiences would find the update irrelevant or even spammy, leading them to click the Unlike button.

Instead, IMDB could publish the update about family films to only those users who’ve clicked Like buttons on any of their family films. By sending niche-specific updates to those who Like that type of content, IMDB can send higher relevancy updates more frequently but to less people, increasing click through rates and driving more traffic to their website without spamming all 585,000 fans of their Facebook Page.

Previously, admins could publish to their Like buttons on real-world objects programmatically through the Graph API by following the Open Graph page documentation, or by clicking the “Admin Page” link that admins see next to the Like buttons on their site or game.

Now, admins can also publish to their Like buttons through the “Use Facebook as Page” option released as part of the 2011 Page redesign. By clicking the Account drop-down menu in the top right corner of the Facebook window and selecting “Use Facebook as Page”, or by visiting the Page Manager, admins can select to use Facebook as one of their Like buttons. They can then post updates through the Publisher just as they would with a traditional Facebook Page.

News feed stories published through any of these means will display the name of the Like button’s content, an image and blurb if available, the story’s own Like button.

As more admins realize they have this option, users will begin to see more stories in their news feeds from Like buttons they’ve clicked. Any Open Graph Like of a real-world object that has publishing privileges appears in the Interests section of the user’s profile, and from there users can visit the original site and Unlike them if they want.

Open Graph Likes without publishing privileges — those of news articles and other digital content, don’t appear in the profile, and and can only be Unliked from the activity feed post about the original Like, or by visiting the original site.

The option to publish to Like buttons will help users see high-quality niche content about specific pieces of content they care about from across the web.

Update: The original version of this article included a critique of Facebook under the incorrect belief that not all Open Graph Likes with publishing privileges could be managed from the Interests section of the profile. All Likes with publishing privileges do in fact appear in the profile and can be Unliked from there if the user desires. Only Likes of websites with the meta tag og:type “Article”, which don’t have publishing privileges, do not appear in the profile.

Therefore, Facebook has provided adequate Open Graph management options. The mistake stemmed from Urban Outfitter’s use of Like buttons with og:type “Article” on their products, despite them representing real-world objects. There is no additional risk to the quality of a user’s news feed in Liking Open Graph objects than in Liking traditional Facebook Pages. We apologize for the inaccuracy.

To access our in-depth guide to Like button publishing including strategies for ecommerce stores, news sites, and applications as well as tips to keep your Pages and Like buttons from being Unliked, check out the Facebook Marketing Bible, Inside Network’s comprehensive manual to marketing through Facebook.

The Inside Network Job Board is dedicated to providing you with the best job opportunities in the Facebook Platform and social gaming ecosystem.

Here are this week’s highlights from the Inside Network Job Board, including positions at Digital Chocolate, Come2Play, Arkadium, and Daglow Entertainment.

• Senior Web Developer (San Mateo, CA)

• Game Developer/Programmer (Remote position)

• Senior Producer (New York, NY)

Daglow Entertainment

• Assistant or Associate Producer (Sausalito, CA)

Listings on the Inside Network Job Board are distributed to readers of Inside Facebook and Inside Social Games through regular posts and widgets on the sites. Your open positions are being seen by the leading developers, product managers, marketers, designers, and executives in the Facebook Platform and social gaming industry today.

Birthdays and horoscopes were popular on our list of Top 20 Growing Facebook Applications by daily active users this week, information we gather from AppData, our tracking service covering traffic for apps on Facebook. In addition there were several Connect apps that appeared on the list, apps in Turkish, games and an app to show you the activity on your Page were also on the list. Note that Facebook has been experiencing reporting delays since the 20th so this data is only a partial look at what’s been happening in the past week.

Top Gainers This Week

	Name	DAU	Gain	Gain,%
1.	CityVille	20,731,163	+593,817	+3%
2.	Badoo	2,935,517	+377,217	+15%
3.	Birthday Calendar	432,024	+367,168	+566%
4.	The Fortune Teller	1,008,448	+348,027	+53%
5.	Windows Live Messenger	13,864,879	+291,448	+2%
6.	Daily Horoscope	338,233	+251,400	+290%
7.	Samsung Mobile	1,740,558	+149,584	+9%
8.	Car Town	1,192,643	+144,507	+14%
9.	HTC Sense	4,572,071	+137,166	+3%
10.	Monster Galaxy	528,769	+123,602	+31%
11.	Birthday reminder	130,045	+122,433	+1,608%
12.	Yahoo!	6,393,107	+113,116	+2%
13.	Ravenwood Fair	1,159,160	+95,216	+9%
14.	Birthday Cards	476,861	+88,352	+23%
15.	Gamers Unite!	319,942	+83,002	+35%
16.	Gourmet Ranch	175,621	+80,075	+84%
17.	Bubble Shooter	81,754	+75,921	+1,302%
18.	Who Loves You More	125,787	+74,955	+147%
19.	HootSuite	104,536	+69,411	+198%
20.	Komşu Çiftlik	554,460	+64,803	+13%

Zynga’s CityVille topped the list after it grew by 593,800 DAU this week, representing 3% of its 20.7 million total. Dating app Badoo was second after seeing 377,200 DAU, pushing the app’s total to just under 3 million.

Third on the list was American Greetings’ Birthday Calendar, which saw 367,200 DAU this week; the app provides greeting cards for users to send to friends for birthdays and other holidays. Another app, Birthday Reminder, grew by 122,400 DAU; the app allows users to automatically post birthday greetings with a message and video to the Walls of their Facebook friends. Finally, RockYou’s Birthday Cards grew by 88,400 DAU; the app allows users to create a custom birthday or other card for their friends.

A few horoscope apps were on the list. The Fortune Teller, available in English or Turkish or German, grew by 348,000 DAU. Then there was Daily Horoscope which saw 251,400 DAU this week, with growth almost exclusive to Turkey. Who Loves You More is an app that shows users the Top Ten friends who interact with your profile, which grew by about 75,000 DAU.

Games in English, French and Turkish made up the rest of the list.

At the end of September, Microsoft began allowing Hotmail users in the US and five other large markets to Facebook Chat with their friends from within Hotmail. Now Microsoft has rolled out access to users in all countries, but only up to 1000 of a user’s friends are imported, preventing users from seeing whether some friends are online or sending them messages.

The addition of Facebook Chat functionality could help Hotmail compete against Gmail, which the postnotes doesn’t include the ability. Meanwhile, Hotmail home page notifications about the newfound ability will expose Facebook to the Microsoft email service’s web 1.0 audience.

Microsoft has been moving to capitalize on the poor relationship between Facebook and its competitor Google by integrating the social network’s data and features into several of its products. Windows Live allows uses to read and publish to their news feed, Bing search offers Facebook Instant Personalization, and the new version of Bing Bar toolbar that launched last week includes Facebook notifications, photos, and friend requests.

Facebook integration has already been getting results. As part of the announcement, Microsoft noted that 20 million Windows Live accounts have now been connected to Facebook — a trend we’ve been tracking for many months, as the app has grown to be one of the largest on the platform.

Microsoft Messenger users can already use Facebook Chat through a desktop application, the Messenger iPhone application, and a Facebook application. Windows Live Messenger for Facebook is the third-largest Facebook application by daily active user count with 13.7 million DAU according to AppData. Only Zynga’s CityVille and FarmVille are larger going by that metric. Earlier this month, Microsoft announced that Messenger has powered a total of 2.8 billion minutes of Facebook Chat.

To use Facebook Chat, Hotmail users must connect their Facebook account to Windows Live and check the “Chat with my Facebook friends in Messenger” box. The second step of the Hotmail account registration flow is now the Connect screen with all Facebook sharing enabled by default, underscoring Microsoft’s focus on getting users to link their accounts.

Once connected, Facebook friends will appear in the bottom left sidebar of the Hotmail inbox in the list of a user’s Messenger contacts. Just like on Facebook, users show a green icon next to their name if they are actively online.

Unfortunately, Hotmail only imports up to 1000 of a user’s Facebook friends as contacts, so if you have more than 1000 friends you won’t see their online status or have the option to initiate a Facebook Chat with them. If you receive a Facebook Chat from one of these missing contacts, Hotmail says the instant message is from “Someone on Facebook”, not the person’s actual name, and there’s no way to instantly add them to your contacts.

Choosing to import email addresses from your Facebook account won’t necessarily find all of the missing contacts either. Not being able to see or send outbound Facebook Chats to some of your friends is major drawback for Hotmail. Even worse, most users won’t even notice that all their contacts weren’t imported, and will just assume these friends are never online.

One benefit of using Facebook Chat through Hotmail is native support for emoticons. Millions of Facebook users install browser add-ons such as Facemoods to gain the ability to select from graphical emoticons to include in their instant messages.

Microsoft will need to fix the contact importing limit if it wants Facebook users to switch from keeping a Facebook window open to spending more time on Hotmail. Still, the integration gives Hotmail one advantage over Gmail and will keep the service relevant to a younger user base while offering its older audience to Facebook.

Apple’s iOS and Facebook are very different platforms at a fundamental level. But their moves over the past month suggest that they could clash over the next year or two in some fascinating ways.

At its core, Facebook is an identity layer that is agnostic about which device or application a user touches the platform with. iOS, in contrast, has so far existed mainly to drive sales of Apple hardware.

But both Apple and Facebook want a cut of downstream revenues from the burgeoning economies that their platforms support. Apple did this from the get-go by taking 30% of revenue from paid apps, which it extended to in-app payments and now subscriptions. Facebook did this with Credits, the currency it introduced as virtual goods blossomed into a $2.1 billion U.S. market. It anchored off the price expectations Apple set, and also used the 70% to 30% revenue split.

Both have moved to consolidate power around their in-house payment systems this year. Facebook will make Credits mandatory as the sole payment option for games by July. Apple now requires that publishers offer consumers the choice of paying through iTunes for subscriptions or in-app purchases, from which it will take a 30% cut. While consumers can still pay for subscriptions outside iTunes, Apple’s system is so seamless that most consumers will probably opt for it anyway.

So this is all well and good: Apple controls payments on iOS. Facebook controls payments on canvas games. When does it get interesting?

> Continue reading on Inside Mobile Apps.

The following is an excerpt from the Facebook Marketing Bible, the comprehensive guide to marketing your company, brand, or app using Facebook. The full version of this article, available through a Facebook Marketing Bible subscription, includes strategies for using destination tab ads that point to your Facebook Page’s standard wall, photos, videos, or events tabs. It also teaches marketers how to direct users to general purpose welcome tabs as well as tabs with a specific purpose such as an email sign-up form or ecommerce store.

Advertisers have the option to create ads with a specific landing tab of a Page as the ad’s destination. Here we’ll provide strategies for how to maximize returns from destination tab ads that point to welcome tabs that are appropriate for all visitors, Facebook’s native tabs, tabs that drive specific types of conversion such as contact info collection or sales, and demographic-specific custom welcome tabs.

Page Destination Tab Basics

Facebook ads created through the self-serve tool can have a specific tab of a Page set as their destination. This allows you to run multiple ad campaigns for different tabs simultaneously, or run ads that target a specific demographic and deliver those users to a landing tab that is especially relevant to them.

To run destination tab ads, go to the self-serve ad tool and select a Page you are an admin of as the ad’s destination. This will reveal a “Destination Tab” drop-down menu. You can then select as the ad’s destination any tab installed on that Page, including Facebook’s in-house apps like Photos or Discussion Board, or third-party apps for sweepstakes, email sign-ups, games, and media content.

Directing Users to Demographic-Specific Custom Tabs

An advanced strategy for using destination tab ads is to create a custom welcome tab that resonates with specific demographic you’re trying to reach, and then targeting that demographic with ads that point to the associated tab.

Determine what demographic has the highest lifetime value to your brand. For instance, young married housewives for a household cleaning product brand, young city-dwelling professionals for a brand of coffeeshops, or 14-18 year old males for a console video game.

Then, design a custom welcome tab that this demographic will find compelling and that asks them to Like your Page. For instance, the household cleaning brand could use bright feminine colors and use messaging like “We know you want the best for your family. Get updates on sales from our Page.”

The coffeeshop brand could use a slick font and messaging that resonates with tech savvy young people who are on the go, like “Fight long hours and short deadlines with a quick trip to our coffeeshop. Hear about new flavors from our Page” The video game brand could use flashy graphics and messaging like “When you get home from school, its time to save the universe. Get tips and game strategies from our Page.”

If a brand wanted to court international users, they could set up a custom tab that talks about their global presence and that links to localized Pages.

Then, target these specific demographic using the Facebook ad tool’s various targeting parameters, and set the appropriate landing tab as the ad’s destination tab. You’ll see a higher conversion rate than sending them to a general welcome tab.

Access strategies for the directing users to other types of Page tabs, and learn more marketing best practices at the Facebook Marketing Bible, Inside Network’s complete guide to marketing and advertising on Facebook.

A few bold marketing moves were on our Featured Facebook Campaigns this week, Zynga and the NBA in particular, although Oreo also tried to get a world record of Facebook marketing. All told there was everything from in-game advertising to NBA team building, Justin Bieber and pizza, digital avatars and dog walking.

Zynga’s Treasure Isle and T-Mobile Partnership

Goal: Advertising, Engagement

Core Mechanic: Zynga has partnered with T-Mobile to include a speed-related task in its Treasure Isle game that touts the speed of T-Mobile’s 4G network.

Game: Treasure Isle is one of Zynga’s hit games. In the new partnership with T-Mobile, an ad campaign in Treasure Isle will include a custom mission themed around the speed of T-Mobile’s 4G network.

Method: The appssavvy-produced ad campaign promises 25 fire shovels, which increase speed in Treasure Isle, and gold coins as rewards for virtually calling five friends to participate in the mission. By calling your friends, or assembling your 4G network, T-Mobile will figure prominently in the game. The campaign runs for a total of 10 days and will featuring T-Mobile icons throughout the game.

Impact: Data from AppData, our service that tracks app and developer leaderboards shows that Treasure Isle has more than 2.5 daily active users and just under 12 million monthly active users. Even if the T-Mobile campaign only lasts for 10 days, there is potential to reach millions of users.

[Image Via Brandweek]

Oreo’s Guinness World Record for More Likes

Goal: Engagement, Press, Page Growth, Network Exposure

Core Mechanic: Kraft Foods’ Oreo cookie brand set out to set a world record for the most Likes on a Facebook post in 24 hours.

Method: Oreo asked their fan base of 16 million to help them set a Guinness world record for the most Likes on a Facebook post in 24 hours. Oreo made it, securing 114,619 Likes on the post.

Impact: Rapper Lil Wayne got wind of Oreo’s world record attempt and asked his 20 million fans to help him compete with Oreo. In the end, Lil Wayne beat out Oreo’s 114,619 Likes many times over. The media coverage of this Facebook Like duel added an unexpected boost to Oreo’s world record blitz. It’s not clear if the musician was in any way sponsored by the brand.

NBA Legend, League’s New Facebook Game

Goal: Product Purchase, Engagement, Network Exposure, Page Growth

Core Mechanic: NBA Legend is the basketball league’s social game offering on Facebook that allows players to essentially train and build up their own teams.

Game: The game allows users to create an avatar, join an NBA basketball team, purchase abilities, such as speed and skill, and then follow a simulated career within the game. Users may compete with their friends on Facebook and eventually the NBA hopes to sell fans virtual goods, such as shoes and sports drinks.

Method: NBA Legend is a virtual world game that allows users, in particular basketball fans, to engage with their favorite teams in a new way, that is by building teams not just playing on them. The game allows users to construct their avatars, take advice from star players and coaches, and generally experience a different type of sports game.

Impact: The NBA has among the highest fan base of any professional sports in the U.S. and thus the game has a large potential audience from which to draw. Although the NBA does have licensing deals with Electronic Arts to make video games, they worked with Lionside to create Legend from another perspective — not just playing games, but coming in as a rookie and working through a basketball career. As previously mentioned, perhaps eventually the NBA will incorporate virtual goods and even marketing campaigns within the game. This is another example of highly recognizable, mainstream intellectual property moving into social games, just as Madden All-Stars and FIFA All-Stars have done.

What are today’s most effective Facebook marketing best practices, and which campaigns have profited most? Visit the Cases section of Inside Network’s Facebook Marketing Bible for the full summary of brand campaigns on Facebook from the past week.