Brands were big on giveaways this week, as Nike, Hyundai and Oscar de la Renta lured fans with free products. Meanwhile State Farm zeroed in on its Latino customers with a specialized Page and Monopoly Millionaires worked to get users excited about setting a world record.

We’ve excerpted two of the campaigns below. You can see the full week’s coverage in the Facebook Marketing Bible, which also includes detailed breakdowns of dozens of other featured campaigns by top-performing brands and businesses on Facebook.

Hyundai’s Coachella Campground Experience

Goal: Network Exposure, Engagement, Product Purchase

Core Mechanic: Hyundai ran a contest giving away airfare, Coachella music festival tickets and $500 spending money for four people, as well as a camping space and car service.

Method: Hyundai ran the sweepstakes on its Facebook landing tab and has since closed the contest. The contest also asks fans to weigh in on a t-shirt contest with Hyundai.

Impact: The Hyundai Page has more than 141,000 Likes and the Coachella music festival giveaway is likely to attract younger users. Because Coachella tickets sold out very quickly this year, brands can offer especially enticing promotions by finding a sold out event, securing some tickets or a VIP package, then targeting ads promoting their ticket giveaway contest to users who Like the Page of the event.

Nike Golf’s Ball Giveaway

Goal: Engagement, Product Purchase, Network Exposure

Core Mechanic: Nike Golf launched a promotion of giving away a sleeve of limited edition golf balls to Facebook fans; the promotion was powered by ShopIgniter.

Method: The promotion was so popular that it was over practically before it began, lasting just a few minutes. The company then had to create two more days of giveaways.

Impact: The Page counts 454,900 Likes, but since the promotion didn’t require users to Like the Page, it’s difficult to estimate how much the promotion added in this sense. The high value of the giveaway was sure to draw a lot of people, but also cause frustration once the limited supply ran out. Nike did well to offer those who didn’t click through early enough a discount code for free shipping on its site, as well as additional chances on subsequent days. This scheduled promotion style gives users time to tell their friends, driving more traffic to the promotion, and also drive additional sales of its merchandise.

Since the giveaway was of such high value, Nike could have Like-gated the promotion. However, this would have irritated users who Liked but then were denied the prize. Some users were also irritated that the promotion was only open to those in the U.S.; Nike could have used the location parameter of the Facebook Page’s update publisher to make the post only visible to those in the U.S. to avoid this problem.

How are top brands in the industry designing their Facebook marketing campaigns? See the Facebook Marketing Bible for detailed breakdowns of dozens of Featured Campaigns by top-performing brands and businesses on Facebook.

Phrases, as well as Badoo and other dating apps, a few Connect apps, horoscopes, Friend Buzz and a Page tool were on our list of top 20 Facebook applications by monthly active users this week. Apps on the list grew between 411,000 and 1.7 million MAU this week. The list was compiled with AppData, our data tracking service covering traffic growth for apps on Facebook and covers apps that grew the most in the past week by MAU.

Top Gainers This Week

	Name	MAU	Gain	Gain,%
1.	Phrases	20,606,742	+1,704,743	+9%
2.	Badoo	67,976,269	+1,582,045	+2%
3.	Diamond Dash	2,759,892	+1,187,499	+76%
4.	Book List Challenges	1,545,394	+1,065,757	+222%
5.	Frases Diarias	8,095,449	+979,888	+14%
6.	friend.ly	2,511,080	+963,091	+62%
7.	FarmVille	48,229,941	+942,563	+2%
8.	Yahoo!	13,172,942	+833,616	+7%
9.	Cupid	5,434,267	+769,007	+16%
10.	Are YOU Interested?	16,595,172	+740,478	+5%
11.	Profiline Bakanlar ?	727,198	+727,198	+0.0%
12.	Zoo World	7,571,337	+579,644	+8%
13.	Monster Galaxy	9,252,709	+556,314	+6%
14.	Daily Horoscope	4,941,327	+512,778	+12%
15.	Phrases (new)	4,933,153	+484,587	+11%
16.	Movie List Challenges	503,948	+462,100	+1,104%
17.	การวิเคราะห์สมอง	1,510,035	+448,910	+42%
18.	Zoosk	6,771,138	+432,591	+7%
19.	Friend Buzz	6,457,429	+422,561	+7%
20.	iframe + Static FBML + Welcome Tab = iwipa	1,184,036	+410,973	+53%

Phrases topped the list this week, seeing a whopping 1.7 million MAU, representing just a 9% increase for the app that allows users to post interesting quotes to their stream. Phrases is not currently available in the U.S. A similar app, Phrases (new) also made the list, but with 484,600 MAU. Frases Diarias, Phrases in Spanish, was a hit in Mexico with 980,000 MAU this week, representing a 14% increase.

Badoo was a big hit this week, too, with 1.6 million MAU; the dating app’s Q&A format has users answer questions about their friends, publishing a feed story with each answer. The app grew mostly outside of the U.S. Then there were three more dating apps that also made the list: Cupid grew by 769,000 MAU, Are YOU Interested? by 740,500 and Zoosk by 423,600 MAU.

Book List Challenges grew by about 1.1 million MAU, a 222% increase. The app allows users to complete a survey of which books they’ve read, publishing results to the stream with inviting language, often prompting other users to comment and submit their own results. A similar app, Movie List Challenges, saw 462,100 more MAU this week, a 1,104% increase.

Connect apps on the list included friend.ly with 963,100 MAU and Yahoo with 833,600 MAU. Turkish app Profiline Bakanlar? grew by 727,200 MAU, another Turkish app, Daily Horoscope with daily Wall posts, grew by 512,800 MAU.

The Thai การวิเคราะห์สมอง brain analysis app grew by 448,900 MAU and encourages virality by publishes feed stories and photo albums tagging a users’ friends. Friend Buzz is a Q&A app for users about their Facebook friends that publishes to the Walls of user’s friends when a question is answered; the app grew by 422, 600 MAU. Finally, iframe + Static FBML + Welcome Tab = iwipa allows users who are Page administrators to compile their social media content into one tab; the app grew by about 411,000 MAU.

Last week, Facebook launched a Page called Journalists on Facebook in an effort to encourage the news community to use the site’s Page feature as a distribution and research tool. Historically, Twitter has been more popular with journalists. thanks to its focus on link sharing, the additional distribution they can get thanks to the ease of retweeting, and the fact that it launched before Facebook Pages. But with Facebook sporting as many as 10 times more active users, journalists should still be focused on mastering the social network, even if takes more work than just tweeting copy and pasted URLs.

Twitter Is Quick and Simple

Twitter and Facebook offer different advantages to journalists. Twitter’s short-form nature means journalists aren’t expected to do much more than tweet the headlines and links to their articles, unless they also want to engage in discussion. Twitter’s public nature discourages low quality replies, so journalists don’t have to slog through thousands of comments the way they might on Facebook. It’s also easy to measure impact and success, even if inaccurately, by counting retweets.

Facebook on the other hand, requires journalists to craft compelling updates that stand out against the social content produced by their audience’s friends. Images, captions, and context have to be selected. Though comments to Page stories are also public, they’re not as visible as @ replies to a user’s own friends, leading large publications to receive hundreds of comments per post. While journalists want this engagement, many are too busy to actually wade through the comments and respond.

On Twitter, the line between personal and professional is easy to blur. A fledgling journalist can begin by tweeting out their articles amongst their more friendly updates, and slowly focus more on news coverage as they gain news-seeking followers outside their social circle. This transition is more difficult on Facebook. At some point, journalists have to start a Facebook Page from scratch with zero fans, or sacrifice their personal profile by turning it into a Page and converting their friends into fans using Facebook’s new profile to Page migration tool.

There’s an air of mystery to the news feed that might be discouraging journalists. With Twitter, if you tweet it, it will appear in a follower’s stream. But on Facebook, a journalist’s updates might not make it into the Top News feed, requiring users to actively sift through their Most Recent feed to find a journalist’s updates.

Twitter also had a head start, launching in July 2006 about a year before Facebook Pages, with top news outlets creating Twitter accounts in February and March of 2008. Facebook’s personal profiles have been able to publish status updates since around the time that Twitter launched  in 2006, but journalists could only accumulate up to 5,000 friends. This allowed Twitter to set the tone of shortform news distribution, while Pages have instead been framed as something that businesses and journalists have had to adapt to.

The Power of Facebook’s Rich Content Posts and Applications

Facebook Pages holds great potential for journalists, though. Pages can post rich content such as photos or videos content with previews appearing in-line. The images and captions that appear beside posted links give users just enough information that they know they want to click through. Highly interactive posts, such as those using the new Questions product, can engage users while simultaneously securing additional distribution for a journalist’s posts.

Journalists can start their own Pages, as Facebook’s new initiative encourages, but even greater power is available from using a single Page to represent an entire news organization, as Facebook has been promoting with its Facebook + Media Page since last July. Pages are designed to facilitate multiple admins, unlike Twitter accounts, and aggregating fans to a single Page helps cross-promote the work of all of a news outlet’s reporters and build a fan community.

The use of applications by journalists, something widely unexplored, could help them forge deeper bonds with users. They can collect email addresses to expand the breadth of channels through which they can content them. Many apps, designed especially for Pages, can also pull demographic and interest data, helping journalists gain insights about who their audience is. Liking a journalist’s Page creates a link back to that Page in a user’s news feed and profile, driving Likes from a fan’s network much more effectively than Twitter’s follower lists.

Larger publications willing to spend to increase their reach can use highly targeted Facebook ads to gain Likes, while Twitter’s”Promoted Tweets” doesn’t have self-serve tool, and doesn’t provide the same level of granular targeting.

While Twitter is a natural distribution channel for news, it’s not necessarily the most effective, nor does it have the widest reach. Most major publications still have more Twitter followers than Facebook fans, but that could change with time. While Facebook might require journalists to learn a new skill set and apply some effort, there is great long term value to be gained from an investment in building an audience on Facebook.

Here are all the latest headlines from around Inside Network.

Inside Mobile Apps

Tracking the convergence of mobile apps, social platforms, and virtual goods.

Monday, April 4th, 2011

• Emerging Paid Apps: Astronomy, Physics & Puzzles Break Into The Top of The iOS Charts
• W3i’s Recharge Studios Funds 12 Titles, Plans to Have 20 Games Out in 6 Months
• Facebook’s New iPhone App Adds Map View of Friends’ Locations, Check-Ins For Events
• Chartboost Launches Tool For Mobile Developers to Cross-Promote Their Own Games

Tuesday, April 5th, 2011

• Save Egypt oniOS with Luxor: Amun Rising HD
• Emerging Top-Grossing iOS Apps: SkyView, TeamLava Titles, Remedy’s Death Rally
• Tap Tap Tap’s Camera+ App Reaches 2 Million Downloads, $1.9 Million in Sales
• SimplePhysics on iPhone — It’s Not So Simple

Wednesday, April 6th, 2011

• Emerging Top Free Apps on iOS: A Shaving Game, Pickup Sticks & Trulia
• Kiip’s In-Game Mobile Advertising Network Launches Monday, Raises $4 Million
• Glu Mobile Makes Use of More Social Monetization Mechanics with iOS Title Big Time Gangsta
• Android’s Rubin Denies Consolidating Power Over The Platform

Thursday, April 7th, 2011

• New Hires in Mobile: Chillingo, EA Mobile, Gameloft, & More
• ReRave Attempts to Evolve iOS Rhythm Games
• Fight Terrorism From Anywhere With Rainbow Six: Shadow Vanguard on iPhone

Friday, April 8th, 2011

• Interview: New RockYou CEO Lisa Marino Talks Social Gaming, Advertising and Mobile
• Facebook Promotes INQ Cloud Touch With Mobile Showcase and Home Page Ads
• Mobile App Roundup: PopCap, Xoom, Photos, & More

Inside Social Games

Covering all the latest developments at the intersection of games and social platforms.

Sunday, April 3rd, 2011

• What Core Games Bring to Social Games

Monday, April 4th, 2011

• Wooga Leads This Week’s List of Fastest-Growing Facebook Games by MAU With Diamond Dash
• DreamWorks CEO Lands on Zynga’s Board of Directors
• Interview: Synapse Games, Inc. — Go Niche of Go Home
• Early Look: Apollo 69 Fires Itself Onto Facebook

Tuesday, April 5th, 2011

• Zynga Hires Team From Poker Industry Service Provider MarketZero
• Kabam Considers a Big New Funding Round, Following Success of Facebook Strategy Games
• Early Look: World Series Superstars
• Interview: EA Playfish’s C.J. Prober on Facebook Superstars

Wednesday, April 6th, 2011

• Highlights This Week From the Inside Network Job Board: Ubisoft, Row Sham Bow, Daglow Entertainment, & More
• Trains, Butterflies, and Diamonds on This Week’s List of Fastest Growing Facebook Games by DAU
• Early Look: Game Insights Seeks Hidden Object Success on Facebook With Mystery Manor

Thursday, April 7th, 2011

• New Hires in Social Gaming: Kabam, PopCap, RockYou, & More
• GameStop Steps Up Digital Retail Effort on Facebook With New Page Storefront
• Zynga Announces New CIO: Cisco’s Debra Chrapaty
• RockYou’s Julie Shumaker at MI6: The Future of Social Games Is Social

Friday, April 8th, 2011

• Puzzle, Sim, and Casino Games Lead This Week’s List of Emerging Facebook Games
• The Lives of Three Dying Playfish Games
• Interview: New RockYou CEO Lisa Marino Talks Social Gaming, Advertising and Mobile
• Social Gaming Roundup: PopCap, MySpace, Startups, & More

Inside Facebook

Tracking Facebook and the Facebook platform for developers and marketers.

Monday, April 4th, 2011

• Badoo, LivingSocial, Phrases, Books and More on This Week’s Top 20 Facebook Apps by MAU
• Fan Accelerator by PowerReviews Helps Ecommerce Sites Leverage the Like Button
• Featured Facebook Campaigns: Expedia, IKEA, The Weather Channel and J-Lo
• Facebook’s New iPhone App Adds Map View of Friends’ Locations, Check-Ins For Events
• Work For Us Page Apps Suggests Relevant Facebook Friends To Refer Job Openings To
• “Friends in [City]” Facebook Sidebar Module Engages Travelers With Local Friends
• Platform Update: Event API Calls Improved, Publishing Video, Receiving Documentation Updates
• The Facebook Marketing Bible April 2011 Edition Is Now Available

Tuesday, April 5th, 2011

• New Facebook Platform Industry Hires: Wildfire, Vitrue, BranchOut, Brighter Option and More
• Obama and Zuckerberg to Field Questions From Users at Facebook Live Town Hall
• Reppler Scans Your Facebook Profile for Objectionable Content and Security Risks
• Collect Surveys and Facebook User Info With Techlightenment’s Social Research Platform

Wednesday, April 6th, 2011

• Badoo, Phrases, Video, Cars, Books and More on This Week’s Top 20 Facebook Apps by DAU
• Buddy Media Report on Facebook Page Posts: Shorter Is Better, but Avoid URL Shorteners
• The Facebook Like Button Placement Guide for Websites
• Highlights This Week From the Inside Network Job Board: Spooky Cool Labs, Buffalo Studios, Acquinity Interactive, & More
• Facebook Promotes Group Buying Features Deals With Home Page Ads and Emails
• Following Problems with Profile to Business Page Migrations, Facebook Introduces Appeals Process

Thursday, April 7th, 2011

• Facebook Asks Admins to Confirm Their Page Categories, Perhaps to Prep for Category Ad Targeting
• Facebook Careers Postings: Engineering, Dublin, Brazil, Credits and More
• Facebook Hires and Departures: Dublin, Global Business, India and More
• Live Blogging Facebook’s “Open Compute Project” — Opening Up Data Center, Server Tech
• Open Compute Project Could Increase Facebook’s and the Whole Tech Industry’s Data Ceter Efficiency
• Department of Homeland Security to Dispense Terror Alerts Via Facebook
• Mounting Evidence Shows Potential of Social Ecommerce, Contradicting Recent Reports

Friday, April 8th, 2011

• Books, Movies, Pages, Mobile and More on This Week’s Top 20 Emerging Facebook Apps by MAU
• Exclusive: Fotobabble’s Talking Facebook Fan Page App for Brand Promotions Lets Users Narrate Photos
• Facebook Changes Some Like Buttons to Show News Feed Story Previews
• Facebook Rumored to be Partnering with Baidu to Launch New, Separate Social Network in China
• Facebook Promotes INQ Cloud Touch With Mobile Showcase and Home Page Ads
• Facebook Roundup: White House, Twitter, MySpace, SeeClickFix, Shoutlet, Soccer and More

White House Spokesman Not Headed to Facebook – Although there was widespread speculation that former White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs was being courted by Facebook, The New York Post reports that an interview didn’t favor him. There was also speculation that Gibbs planted the story to boost his image. [Image Via Pete Souza]

Twitter to Offer Pages Similar to Facebook – Marketing Magazine reported this week that Twitter is set to offer branded Pages similar to what Facebook offers. The idea is to allow brands a space to deliver their own content and cultivate more Twitter followers.

Sean Parker Pushed Back Against “The Social Network” – The New York Times reported this week that the first president of Facebook, Sean Parker, used a public relations firm, ID, to undermine the credibility of “The Social Network” during the Oscars race earlier this year.

MySpace SVP Joines Tagged – TechCrunch reported that MySpace’s SVP of Customer Care Tish Whitcraft left the social network to join another, Tagged, as chief customer officer this week.

Marin Software Raises $16M - Marin Software raised $16 million in Series E funding from a variety of investors this week, bringing the company’s total to $51 million. Marin Software creates search engine management software for agencies and advertisers, according to TechCrunch.

SeeClickFix Launches on Facebook Platform – SeeClickFix launched an application on the Facebook platform this week, reported TechCrunch. The service helps people flag issues for officials to tend to.

Shoutlet Updates Management Platform - Shoutlet released an update to its platform this week, Shoutlet 4.0. The new version adds CRM functionality to YouTube and Twitter, in addition to Facebook. It also includes contest functionality, HTML5 compatibility and more.

Vanity Fair’s Facebook Revolution Slideshow - Vanity Fair created a slideshow of Egyptian protesters that used Facebook widely during the recent change in leadership in that country.

Argentine Footballer Gains 7M Fans in 7 Hours – Argentine football (soccer) star Leo Messi just started his Facebook Page Wednesday; 7 hours later he had 7 million Likes, reported Mashable. The sudden growth was likely due to a Facebook merging the various unofficial Pages and community Pages users had created for the athlete before he made his own.

Facebook is promoting the INQ Cloud Touch mobile handset with Sponsored Story home page ads leading to a new Showcase tab on the Facebook Mobile Page. Commonly referred to as “The Facebook Phone”, the INQ Cloud Touch recently became available for purchase in the UK. The Wildfire-powered Showcase tab highlights the device’s deep Facebook integration , such as how a user’s news feed and a button for Chat appear on the home screen.

The INQ Cloud Touch is part of Facebook’s efforts to tackle the middle-tier of the mobile market, between below high-end smart phones and above devices without data plans. It’s aimed at thrifty Facebook power users who want constant access to their Facebook content. As such, the commercial for the Android-powered handset on the Showcase tab features young, hip twenty-somethings planning meetups with friends and posting photos from a party.

>Continue reading at Inside Mobile Apps

Several China-based publications are reporting that Facebook has signed a deal with Chinese internet search giant Baidu to create a special social network for China. Facebook’s is blocked by the Chinese government, so the rumors indicate that the company will create a new social network especially for Chinese market of 500 million internet users, and that this site won’t be integrated with Facebook.

There have been false rumors in the past of Facebook entering China in one way or another, but this could be a way for the company to reach and monetize an enormous audience that isn’t able to sign up for the US-based social network.

Beijing-based Marbridge Consulting quoted Hu Yanping, founder of Beijing-based market research firm Data Center of the China Internet (DCCI), as saying Facebook signed a deal with an unspecified Chinese company. Marbridge Consulting later updated saying multiple industry sources told it Baidu was that company. Bill Bishop, a respected source on Chinese technology developments, tweeted that Baidu, along with Alibaba, China Mobile, and Sohu were possibilities, and confirmed that Sina was not the signee.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg met with Baidu on his recent trip to China, and the Chinese company’s leaders reportedly visited Silicon Valley in February. Baidu has been said to up to 83.6% of Chinese search traffic, and could therefore have the ability jumpstart a new social network through promotion on its properties. Facebook worked with Russian search engine Yandex to promote itself through the inclusion of status updates and a Facebook widget, and an integration with Baidu but for the China-specific social network could follow the same structure.

We’ve detailed the complicated problem China represents to Facebook. The open-and-connected nature of Facebook does not mesh with government policies or social norms in the country. It would costly if Facebook had to develop an alternate version of its site that fit the local culture. Catering to China’s repressive government to gain access there could also harm Facebook’s reputation around the world. As of the beginning of March, Facebook had 659,000 monthly active users in China despite being blocked there, probably due to some combination of faulty censorship efforts, the use of proxy servers, government officials with special access. This incredibly low penetration leaves China as a blank void on the world map of Facebook friend connections pictured above.

Creating a separate social network in partnership with Baidu could help Facebook sidestep some of these problems. It could be designed from the ground up to offer what Chinese users want without violating government policy or needing to surmount the wall of censorship. This would relieve Facebook from having to divert its product development team. Without the Facebook name on the product, there’d also be a reduced risk of a public relations backlash.

Rumors of the Baidu deal could be false, and this could all blow over quickly. But if they are true, Facebook may have found a way to enter China, albeit under a different brand name.

Facebook is testing a change of the interface of Like buttons that allow comments, such that users are shown a preview of the story that will be published, complete with image and caption. Previously, users only saw a text input field for adding their comment. This tested interface let users comment with confidence, knowing they won’t be repeating what’s already included in the caption or image.

If Facebook rolls out Like story previews, it could result in users publishing more compelling stories that would send additional referral traffic to sites that implement Like buttons with commenting functionality. Alternatively, seeing a preview of their story could lead users to think twice and retract their Like, especially if sites don’t properly use Open Graph meta tags to populate stories with the right images or text.

While the change is relatively subtle, there’s a large potential impact since over 2.5 million websites have implemented Facebook’s social plugin including the Like button. If Facebook finds the change significantly increases Like button clicks or referral traffic driven by their news feed stories, it might roll the change out to all Like Buttons.

At the end of February, Facebook made a significant modification to all implementations of the Like button. Each click of one began generating a full news feed story, rather than the one-line activity feed story that was less visible, less, compelling, and which drove fewer clicks. Before, a full story was only published if users added a comment via a drop-down input field upon clicking Like.

For reference, users are given the option to add a comment after clicking any Like button built off of XFBML, or any iframe Like button using the standard layout style with a minimum width of 400 pixels. Only the alternative button_count and box_count iframe layouts, or standard layouts smaller than 400 pixels don’t give users the option to comment. For more information on implementing the Like button on websites and publishing additional news feed stories to those that click them, check out our Facebook Marketing Bible entries, “The Like Button Style Guide“, “How to Choose Open Graph Tags That Maximize the Value of Your Like Buttons“, and “The Like Button Placement Guide“.

Now, when users click Like buttons with the option to comment that are part of the test, they’ll see a hover card-style popup with a text input field, and a preview of what will be shared including the story’s headline, URL, and caption. The story previews are similar to the publisher pop up users see that Facebook requires applications to show when they prompt users to post a story.

Similar to those previews, but different from what happens when users copy and paste a URL into Facebook’s standard news feed publisher, users aren’t allowed to edit the any of the pre-populated text or choose a different image.

The preview is important to making sure users only share what they intend to. For instance, if users clicked a Like button on a news story with multiple image, the Like story preview will show them which image will be included in their post.

The Like story previews increase transparency in sharing, which Facebook encourages across the board. Giving users more confidence in clicking the Like button is a good thing, whether it increases or decreases clicks, but its Facebook’s choice whether to roll the previews out further.

[Thanks to Amit Lavi for the tip]

New startup Fotobabble is launching the private beta of its Talking Facebook Fan Page app. Pages will be able to install the tab app, customize it with their logos and messaging, and begin allowing their fans to add voice narration to photos. These photos are automatically branded with the Page’s name and link, and can then be shared to the news feed, posted to the Page’s wall, or used as contest submissions.

Talking Facebook Fan Page takes advantage of the wealth of photos being uploaded to Facebook, has a lightweight flow, and produces compelling content users will want to share. These factors could lead brands to license the app to power engaging promotions. However, the use cases of the app are relatively unexplored so its unclear whether there is much user demand for what it offers. Interested brands can signup for beta access ahead of the self-serve app’s release next month.

The problem with many user generated content creation apps is they are too high touch, requiring users to produce new source content before they can start, undertake laborious photo or video editing, and endure long upload times. This limits the potential audience for promotions to a brand’s most loyal fans, and provides too many drop-off points before users finally have the option to share their content, and the brand, with their friends. On the other side of the spectrum, standard photo submission contests have been overused and become stale.

Founded in January 2010, the 8-person company has taken $300,000 in seed funding to create a product that aims for a sweet spot between these extremes. Users simply choose a previously uploaded photo or add a new one, speak into their computer’s microphone, and they’re ready to publish content augmented with the intimacy of their voice. Users can also create Fotobabbles for publishing on Facebook using the company’s iPhone app.

Outside of video, there aren’t many to hear the voices of friends on Facebook, creating a pent up demand for verbal story telling which brands can take advantage of. For instance, a brand could run a contest asking users “Upload a photo of a tropical destination and tell us why you need a vacation for a chance to win 2 tickets to Hawaii.”

Since the launch of its iPhone and web apps, Fotobabble has since found that users enjoyed recording anecdotes about vacation and event photos, and narrating from the perspective of a photo’s subject, such as a pet. Travel, event promotion, and pet-themed Pages could all be natural hosts for the app, and there’s potential for consumer packaged goods, restaurants, and retail brands to use the app to solicit testimonials. Fotobabble also offers plugins and APIs so brands can syndicate content created through the app to other places on the web.

As another use case, brands could record and post their own talking photos to describe their products and services. Fotobabble is considering releasing a canvas app targeted directly at users, allowing them to send Fotobabbles as audio picture messages and birthday wall posts, perhaps narrating a photo of themselves and the birthday boy or girl.

One issue is that Fotobabble’s technology isn’t particularly defensible. Upon hearing of the idea, Page management companies could copy the app’s structure and add it to the suite of promotional apps they offer clients. Fotobabble should consider striking deals for these companies to integrate its technology and design. Recording voice could also be too unfamiliar for users try the app.

As brands realize they need a constant stream of new engagement promotions, there’s an opportunity for creative startups like Fotobabble. Success will depend on a frictionless interface and clear instructions, if it can take care of these, brands might be willing to add Talking Facebook Fan Page to their tab app mix.