Consumers have always identified with cars, even going so far as to give them their own names. As millions of people become fans of their favorite brands on Facebook, what is the auto industry up to?

According to PageData, auto brands are on Facebook, but with only one brand at over 500,000 fans – Porsche – there is significant potential for growth in this space. Here’s a glimpse of the top Facebook Pages in the auto category:

Facebook Page Leaderboard – Automotive

	Name	Fans
1.	Porsche	529,006
2.	Audi	312,020
3.	Ford Mustang	297,868
4.	VW	270,493
5.	MINI USA	166,348
6.	Chevrolet Corvette	64,562
7.	Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution	63,628
8.	Maserati	44,831
9.	Honda Civic	43,382
10.	Volvo	33,936
11.	Toyota Prius	33,002
12.	Gila Motor	17,266
13.	GMC	11,688
14.	Toyota Yaris	10,131
15.	Bathurst 1000	9,555
16.	Subaru Impreza STI	9,080
17.	Mitsubishi Motors Fan Page	7,641
18.	BMW South Africa	7,349
19.	Guate Es Calida’	6,995
20.	Opel Corsa	4,143
21.	Megane	3,776
22.	Fiat	2,850
23.	Nissan Malaysia	2,662

Following Porsche at #1 is Audi at #2 and Ford Mustang at #3. With nearly 300,000 fans, the Mustang Page gained over 3,500 fans this week, growing about 1.2 percent. As you can see from the chart below, Ford Mustang’s following on Facebook is growing by about 500 fans a day. But Ford would be wise to follow our 8 Tips for Effectively Updating Your Facebook Page – the company has only posted two updates this month.

Following Ford Mustang in the Top 5 are: VW (#4), Mini USA (#5). The top 25 also includes Gila Motor (#12), Chevrolet Corvette (#6), Toyota Prius (#11), and Volvo (#10). These brands saw a growth rate ranging from 1.2 percent to 18.7 percent, the latter enjoyed by Gila Motor.

If you take a look at the top automotive Pages, you’ll notice that auto brands have been heavy on sharing videos (commercials) and photos (of their car models) with their friends, but updates to the Wall are sparse. In other words, auto brands are not touching and reaching their fans frequently enough, and Wall posts are not as social as they could be.

Auto brands: think back to BMW and Graffiti’s “What Drives You?” campaign. Or the Prius page is off to a good start with their use of social polls. Prius asks: “If Prius had a flavor, what would it be?”

Note: This post was updated to correct listings in the chart above.

Learn more about building your brand and growing your audience with our comprehensive guide to marketing on Facebook. The Facebook Marketing Bible is available at FacebookMarketingBible.com

While you’ve likely been keeping close track of the top applications on the Facebook Platform, it’s time to take a look again at what’s bubbling up. Here are this week’s top gainers in the 10,000 to 100,000 monthly active users (MAU) range, according to AppData.

		Name	MAU	Gain	Gain, %	Developer
1.		Streema Radio Tuner	84,487	+43,052	+103.9	Streema.com
2.		Premier League Fantasy Football	46,955	+34,689	+282.8	Citizen Sports, Inc.
3.		Seegugio	70,299	+28,009	+66.2	Seegugio
4.		Domande degli amici	71,152	+24,223	+51.6	italiano appo
5.		Which Classic Muscle Car Are You?	89,668	+21,113	+30.8	Dustin Andrew Brockman
6.		Spongebob and friends	82,974	+19,707	+31.2	Nicole Bagley
7.		Entrevista amigo	18,803	+17,806	+1786.0	secretos
8.		Doğruyu söyle	18,818	+17,708	+1595.3	shibby
9.		迎財神送元寶	61,729	+17,322	+39.0	散財童子
10.		Pittsburgh Steelers Fans	59,363	+16,254	+37.7	Watercooler
11.		Preguntas de Amigos	21,195	+15,999	+307.9	Classic Game
12.		My Kitten	81,559	+15,740	+23.9	YoTurn
13.		Hugging	43,049	+14,448	+50.5	—
14.		Sharing	28,035	+14,100	+101.2	—
15.		Arkadaş Selamla	17,611	+12,744	+261.9	Application Creator
16.		Tatty teddy	36,543	+12,612	+52.7	—
17.		DB Characters Collector	68,357	+12,368	+22.1	Tapassots Crew
18.		Best Friends!	92,797	+12,215	+15.2	Chad Morovitz
19.		What Random Object Are You?	75,931	+12,177	+19.1	Kyle Sweeney
20.		Video Theater	82,763	+12,057	+17.1	Social Kangaroo

Leading this week is an app called Streema Radio Tuner, developed by Streema.com. The app lets you to listen to radio stations around the world and share your finds with friends. This week, Streema Radio Tuner increased by over 43,000 MAU, representing a 104 percent gain. In total, the app now has more than 85,000 MAU.

Sharing the Top 5 with Streema Radio Tuner are Premier League Fantasy Football (#2), Seegugio (#3), Domande degli amici (#4), and Which Classic Muscle Car Are You? (#5) Together, these five apps experienced a gain ranging from about 21,000 MAU to 43,000 MAU and a percentage gain of 31 percent to 283 percent.

This week, Premier League Fantasy Football grew by 283 percent.

It’s worth nothing that seven out of the Top 20 top gainers this week are international, pointing to a trend that we’ve seen again and again: Facebook’s strong international growth.

Learn more about building your brand and growing your audience with our comprehensive guide to marketing on Facebook. The Facebook Marketing Bible is available at FacebookMarketingBible.com

Managing a Facebook Page can be a daunting task. Once you’ve set up a Page for your business or brand, how do you keep the content you share fresh, engaging, and social? For Facebook marketers, mastering the way you share content on your Page’s Wall – arguably the most important feature on Facebook, since updates flow directly to users’ home pages – is crucial. Here are eight tips for effectively updating your Facebook Page.

1. Know how to use the Publisher.

The Publisher, which sits at the top of your Wall, is the tool you use to generate Wall posts. It seems simple enough to use, but we’ve seen Page after Page not getting it right. The main comments field allows you to introduce your story and add context to the content you’re about to share. Below this box, you’re given the options of attaching links, photos, events, and videos. Mixing up the media formats that you share your stories in will ensure that you’re fully maximizing the media-rich potential of your Wall.

2. Don’t lead with a URL.

A common mistake some Page owners often make is copying and pasting URLs into the comments box instead of attaching it and adding your own comment. This is almost worse than forgetting to add a comment at all. Leading the Wall post with a comment builds the organization’s voice.

Leading the story with a URL…

…instead of a personalized comment: you miss the opportunity to color the story and build rapport with your fans.

Notice that you can choose a thumbnail of your choice to go with your link. Many times, we’ve seen Page owners associating the wrong thumbnails with links. Make sure the two match.

3. Balance between stories that drive fans back to your site vs. build community on Facebook.

There are many Facebook Pages that aggressively push their page fans to their own websites upon clicking on Wall posts. While this is a valid strategy for many marketing programs, it must be balanced with the fact that doing so may not be the best for building a following or community on Facebook. Take time to share miscellaneous facts with your fans, or get users to generate content on your Wall via competitions.

Coke’s Facebook Page shares a random fact with its fans.

4. Use your Wall to cross-promote other Facebook campaigns (e.g., applications, virtual gifts).

At the beginning of this year, Ben & Jerry’s partnered with nonprofit organization Common Cause through the Causes application. The “Yes PeCan!” drove traffic between the Causes app and Ben & Jerry’s Facebook Pages, which gained 33,000 new fans and saw a 5-times increase in page visits.

Virtual gifting campaigns have been popular. Create Wall stories that allow fans to send virtual gifts in a few simple clicks.

5. Reward your fans by letting them in on special promotions.

By fanning your page, users are associating their Facebook identities with your brand. On a viral platform like Facebook, your fans become influencers who share the content you generate with their friends. Offering special promotions is a great way of growing your fan base because your current users will feel that they are getting substantial value out of being your fan, while potentially sharing these promotions with friends who will then become more likely to fan your page.

To celebrate its 300,000th fan, Papa John’s thanked its fans with this special offer.

6. Know who your fans are and make an effort to engage in conversation with all of them.

If you’re an international brand, this may mean that many – if not the majority – of your fans live outside of the U.S. and speak in languages other than English! Post stories in other languages occasionally to give a shout out to your fans in other countries. Using Page Insights, determine the demographics of your fan population and use this information to tailor your stories in appropriate and fitting ways.

7. If you import content to your Facebook Wall, make sure to do so in a seamless fashion.

For example, if you’re importing your organization’s blog to your Facebook Page via the Notes application, make sure that the Wall is not automatically generating Wall stories as you’re manually posting to the Wall. This will lead to duplicate Wall posts, giving off the impression that you’re being sloppy.

8. Don’t just watch: actively participate in Wall activity.

1-800-FLOWERS has done an impressive job of becoming part of the conversations that are taking place on the Wall, from replying to customer complaints to commenting on photos that fans are posting. In doing this, brands can become increasingly accessible to their customers and understand how they think and interact with their products/services at a level of efficiency that was not possible before the rise of social media marketing.

Conclusion

Learning how to optimize the content you share on your Wall is crucial to improving your Facebook marketing efforts. Some more sophisticated advertisers may want to make their own analytics tools to triangulate data provided by Facebok’s Insights dashboard. At the end of the day, learning how to use your Page’s Wall to engage your fans is crucial to making the most of your connections to fans on Facebook.

Related Resources:

• The Facebook Marketing Bible: The Guide to Marketing Your Brand, Company, Product, or Service Inside Facebook
• Best & Worst Facebook Marketing, 2009

Learn more about building your brand and growing your audience with our comprehensive guide to marketing on Facebook. The Facebook Marketing Bible is available at FacebookMarketingBible.com

Two months ago, Russian investment firm Digital Skies Technology (DST) invested $200 million dollars into Facebook for a two percent slice of the social networking site in the form of preferred stock, saying at the time that DST would buy up to $100 million in common stock from existing shareholders as well at some point in the near future. Last week, the firm moved forward with the employee stock purchase part of the deal.

Under the agreement, DST will buy up to $100 million dollars in Facebook common stock at a $6.5 billion dollar valuation, or $14.77 per share. Current and former employees quality for the program, but it appears that former employees may be at the back of the line, according to Reuters, with no guarantee that they will be included in the program.

Facebook didn’t comment on the terms of the deal, but if the terms of the employee stock purchase agreement do indeed give current employees first dibs on the program, then former Facebook employees may find themselves banking on the hope that DST will buy more shares when the currently ongoing program ends soon – or wishing Facebook would go public sometime sooner rather than later, as it’s not clear when the next liquidity opportunity might be.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Newsweek recently that he was glad the employee stock sale was moving forward.

“I’m really happy that people have a chance to do this. Back in the early days I had the chance during one of our funding rounds to get a bit of liquidity,” Zuckerberg said. “It meant that in making decisions about Facebook I didn’t have to worry about the short term. I could just work on making Facebook as good as possible, and optimize it for 10 to 20 years out. To the extent that other people have the chance to do that now, it would be a healthy thing.”

With 250 million users, Facebook continues to grow by leaps and bounds. But despite the astronomical growth, some users still delete their accounts for one reason or another. However, Facebook is trying interesting tactics to keep users from leaving. Just when you go to your Account Settings and click on the “Deactivate Account” link, you are forced to think twice about your heartless decision:

How can you make the final move when brought face to face with all the wonderful photos you share together? It’s a clever approach to user retention that has worked well for virtual pets sites in the past (who often ask, “If you leave, who will take care of Fluffy??”). If you have a hard time leaving, you’re not the only one: time spent on Facebook only continues to rise.

With over 3.6 million fans, Starbucks has just passed Coca-Cola to become the the most popular brand on Facebook. How? A good combination of a well-done Facebook Page, fun promotions for fans, and effective Facebook home page Engagement Ads. In fact, Starbucks gained nearly 200,000 Facebook fans this week alone.

As you can see below, Starbucks saw some significant spikes on July 18 and July 21, when the company was running its Free Pastry giveaway. Fans who printed out this invitation could redeem a free pastry with the purchase of any beverage. Consumers love coupons – and Starbucks is loving its increasing Facebook reach.

Starbucks does not fall into the category of run-of-the-mill social media marketing. Earlier this month, the company gave away free ice cream through its Facebook application. In May, Starbucks put up new advertising posters is six cities, asking people to spot them, take photos, and post them on Twitter. And on Election Day, Starbucks released its Starbucks Vote Commercial on YouTube announcing that coffee would be on them for everyone who voted.

Starbucks now leads all public profiles in the Retail category, according to PageData. Following Starbucks as this week’s top Facebook Page gainers in the Retail category is Levis, which saw a gain of 72,474 fans, representing a 178 percent weekly growth rate. Accompanying Starbucks and Levis in the Top 20 also include The Cheesecake Factory (#4), Anthropologie (#7), Whole Foods Market (#10), and Gymboree (#20).

	Name	Fans	Gain	Gain, %
1.	Starbucks Coffee Company	3,657,887	+190,561	+5.50
2.	Levis	113,260	+72,474	+177.69
3.	Newegg.com	45,052	+34,414	+323.50
4.	The Cheesecake Factory	88,643	+28,356	+47.04
5.	7-eleven	113,966	+4,740	+4.34
6.	The Blue Groove	15,216	+3,996	+35.61
7.	Anthropologie	21,557	+3,272	+17.89
8.	Target	467,875	+3,049	+0.66
9.	Staples	11,532	+2,649	+29.82
10.	Whole Foods Market	100,811	+2,304	+2.34
11.	Surfer Girl Bali	16,389	+2,138	+15.00
12.	GUESS? Inc.	85,844	+1,927	+2.30
13.	PacSun	87,006	+1,919	+2.26
14.	aerie by american eagle	141,384	+1,718	+1.23
15.	JCP Teen	9,888	+1,688	+20.59
16.	JCPenney	18,434	+1,638	+9.75
17.	lululemon athletica	54,256	+1,605	+3.05
18.	Sheetz	33,076	+1,567	+4.97
19.	Nordstrom, Inc.	12,956	+1,383	+11.95
20.	Gymboree	26,074	+1,243	+5.01

Facebook Marketplace, the Facebook classifieds application that’s now built and managed by Oodle, is introducing new sharing features designed to make it easier to post classified listings to your profile. Facebook Marketplace currently attracts about 1.9 million monthly active users to find and share listings with friends.

When Oodle took over Marketplace in March, the company took a new approach to the app, making it much more focused on sharing than purely browsing items in your local area. The new “Shout” feature adds another way to share by publishing items you find to your Wall and the News Feed. Depending on the link you click – “Like it!” or “Check it out!” or “Should I buy this?” – the story will be pre-populated with a comment, which you can of course customize.

In general, classifieds has been one of the more challenging areas for social app developers to capitalize on over the last few years. It will be interesting to see whether Facebook Marketplace users will be giving out “Shouts” generously.

Much has been happening in the social gaming world as of late. Playdom brought Mobsters to the iPhone; Zynga filed several more lawsuits; and the Chinese government banned the sale of virtual currency for real money.

Which games are gaining steam? Here are this week’s top gaming applications in the 1-10 million monthly active users (MAU) category, according to AppData:

		Name	MAU	Gain	Gain, %	Developer
1.		Restaurant City	7,370,692	+833,803	+12.8	Playfish
2.		Crazy Planets	1,045,134	+443,770	+73.8	Playfish
3.		YoVille	8,954,037	+349,687	+4.1	Zynga
4.		UNO™ BETA	2,586,370	+182,373	+7.6	GameHouse
5.		Vampire Wars	2,502,394	+158,319	+6.8	Zynga
6.		Waka-Waka	3,784,499	+137,852	+3.8	Metrogames
7.		Biotronic	4,050,780	+131,383	+3.4	Metrogames
8.		Tattoodle	1,779,673	+126,418	+7.7	Make The Web Better
9.		Who Has The Biggest Brain?	3,405,456	+97,562	+3.0	Playfish
10.		Bowling Buddies	2,496,877	+71,048	+2.9	Playfish
11.		Geo Challenge	3,929,138	+57,680	+1.5	Playfish
12.		Pirates: Rule the Caribbean!	1,440,369	+47,146	+3.4	Zynga
13.		Word Challenge	3,333,729	+43,557	+1.3	Playfish
14.		My Stuff	1,635,477	+36,387	+2.3	Gigya
15.		Rock Legends!	1,161,363	+33,236	+3.0	Serious Business
16.		Graffiti	2,173,610	+24,700	+1.2	Mark Kantor
17.		Hug Me	4,238,447	+24,647	+0.6	RockYou!
18.		Minigolf Party	1,319,971	+13,731	+1.1	Playfish
19.		Poker Palace	1,070,274	+5,725	+0.5	Playdom
20.		Sketch Me	2,245,504	+1,434	+0.1	Fendoo

In the #1 spot is verified app Restaurant City, developed by Playfish. In the app, you can start your own restaurant and bring your friends in as waiters and chefs. Like other virtual worlds, you can decorate your restaurant with your choice of furniture and decorations and visit your friends’ restaurants and, in this case, collaborate on your menus by trading ingredients. Restaurant City currently has over 7 million MAU, with a weekly gain of nearly 13 percent, and has been climbing steadily since its launch:

Following at #2 is Crazy Planets, another one of Playfish’s creations. In Playfish’s own words, “Alert! Alert! The robots are on a rampage across the universe! Gather your friends, ready your weapons, it’s up to you to save the universe. Collect crystals, research new weapons and create your own planet as you battle for glory!” Crazy Planets is another example of the growing popularity of social games where users create their own spaces (e.g., planets, restaurants, homes) and compete with, while enjoying the company of, neighboring friends. This week the app saw an increase in MAU of 443,770 – more than half of what Restaurant City saw – but then again, saw a percentage gain of almost 74 percent, a nice number for a weekly growth rate.

Joining Restaurant City and Crazy Planets in the Top Five include Zynga’s YoVille (#3), GameHouse’s UNO BETA (#4), and Zynga’s Vampire Wars (#5). It’s notable that in this batch, four out of five of the apps are developed by leading developers Playfish and Zynga. Both make an appearance – several more for Playfish – with other developers such as Metrogames, Serious Business, and RockYou! for apps Waka-Waka (#6), Rock Legends! (#15), and Hug Me (#17), respectively.

You know the ubiquitous buttons you see on your favorite sites that allow you to share content on multiple sites, including Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.? Well, according to AddToAny, which makes a product in the space, users are sharing their interesting finds on the Web on Facebook more than any other channel. And yes, that includes the beloved email.

While 24 percent of shares is going to Facebook, only 11 percent is being sent via email – a clear sign that when given the choice, people would rather post to a site like Facebook where their efforts can be seen by many more pairs of eyes and appreciated and affirmed by many more likes and comments.

Other highlights from the data:

• Yahoo’s Delicious + Yahoo Bookmarks + Yahoo Buzz + Yahoo Messenger: 14.4%
• Twitter: 10.8%
• MySpace: 5%
• Digg: 4.4%
• LinkedIn: 0.4%

This is the way information is spreading these days. It’s not about one-to-one exchanges, it’s about interacting with many connections around shared interests, and the data tells that story.

American Airlines is launching a campaign on Facebook to promote its new fare-finding application, which allows users to search for low fares. The app is currently in beta and nameless, which is why the campaign is a “name drive” that calls users to submit names for the app. Those who submit names will be entered to win 25,000 American Airlines AAdvantage miles.

Here’s how it works:

1. First, install American Airlines’s Travel Bag app.

2. Experiment with the fare-finding feature: searching for a trip from San Francisco to Beijing returns the low fare result below: $3,804. When you click “View Details,” you’re taken to a pop out window where you can book a ticket at AA.com, or share the app with your friends.

3. Optionally, you can post a link on your Facebook profile.

4. Finally, submit your name here.

The airline industry has been talking to its customers on Facebook, and American Airlines’s new fare-finding app will be an interesting case study on how users share their flight booking information. Will consumers find it more convenient to book their travels without leaving Facebook? What’s the likelihood of them sharing low fares that they find via a Wall Post?

We’ve seen the popularity of travel apps like Cities I’ve Visited and Kidnap! Both of these apps have already built a user base of people who are interested in travel and, more importantly, interested in the social component of it. Another smart move may be to partner with already existing travel apps, finding ways of seamlessly integrating your airline’s brand in the context of a map (Cities I’ve Visited) or a game (Kidnap!)

Related Resources:

• The Facebook Marketing Bible
  
• The Facebook Marketing Bible: Agency & Brand Edition
  
• Best & Worst Facebook Marketing 2009