Facebook strategy software company Zuum today releases a new dashboard interface designed to give marketers an understanding of metrics and trends on a number of Facebook pages at once, regardless of whether they have admin rights to the pages.

With Zuum’s subscription service, companies can monitor between five and 10 pages to follow the competition or see how other industries are using Facebook. Zuum collects and organizes all the pages’ publicly available data, such as People Talking About This, the number of posts per day and engagement per post. Zuum then creates leaderboards, word clouds and and other views of what’s being shared on a page and how it’s performing.

The updated dashboard section of the tool is more visual than the text- and data-heavy dashboard Zuum had previously. The dashboard now includes the following features:

• Leaderboard – A breakdown of how various pages perform across industry benchmarks, including People Talking About This, fan growth rate, engagement rate and community involvement.
• Brand Voice – Subject analysis, media type analysis, People Talking About This and a keyword cloud of the most engaging terms for all brands in the report.
• Most Engaging Posts – A list of the most engaging posts for client page as well as competitor pages.
• Community Health – Includes the most common subjects posted about for both client brand and their competitors, images of the most popular fan posts for all pages and a list of the most engaging fan posts.

Zuum emails a daily, weekly or monthly PDF of the dashboard to subscribers and anyone they work with. Company co-founder and social content strategist Doug Schumacher says some subscribers have been sending the PDF to their whole team or printing it out for brainstorming sessions.

Zuum is commonly used to track competitors but businesses can also monitor pages in order to see what works in different industries and get inspiration. The tool could be useful for marketers working on regular campaigns or preparing for pitches. Zuum offers some historical data going back to January 2010.

As marketers begin to focus more on content and engagement than building large fan bases, features like Zuum provides are increasingly valuable. Unmetric Inc., which offers a similar tool with the objective of letting brands benchmark their success against competitors, raised $3 million in Series A funding from Nexus Venture Partners earlier this month. As it happens, Inside Network has its own PageData service that we use for tracking growth and engagement across pages. With Facebook making more insights and demographic data public, these tools can aggregate information in ways that would be very time-consuming and less meaningful if viewed individually on the social network.

Facebook marketing software company Involver today introduces a new application programming interface to allow marketers to optimize their Facebook ad campaigns based on post-click engagement.

With the Engagement Optimization API, Involver apps can pass optimization data to the customer’s ad platform of choice. We’ve seen a number of ad providers and app management companies partner to create unified products that enable this type of optimization, but it often requires brands and agencies to change their software or service providers. Involver says it can provide the same optimization features while being agnostic to which ad provider a customer wants to use. Facebook ad partners Marin, Unified and SocialCode have already integrated the new API.

“We want to change the way this market operates,” Involver VP of Marketing Roland Smart says. “We believe things need to become more technology-driven and [social marketing tools] should interoperate with each other.”

When businesses develop applications using Involver’s Social Markup Language, they can get parameterized URLs so each Facebook ad can include unique click tags. Involver assigns a score to every interaction within an app — watching a video, filling out a form or claiming a coupon, for example. Involver’s system tallies that score and returns anonymized, aggregated data for each ad so that ad platforms can make decisions accordingly.

“We’re not telling ad platforms how to optimize,” Smart says. Involver simply delivers the data in a way that is Facebook-compliant.

Smart says the Engagement Optimization API can also be used beyond ads to provide insights for email marketing campaigns or posts across different social networks.

Facebook Preferred Marketing Developers with access to the Ads API can enter into a referral agreement with Involver for access to the Engagement Optimization API. This move could serve Involver well if more ad providers sign on. Instead of investing in acquiring a single ad company as Buddy Media and others have, Involver can work with several at a time. However, it remains to be seen whether the market will continue to consolidate as it has been or if Involver’s API approach can disrupt that.

A mobile Facebook application’s page topped our list of growing pages this week, as well as several sports-related pages, musician pages and popular movie pages. Pages on our list this week grew from between 407,800 to 3 million Likes. We compile this list with our PageData tool, which tracks page growth across Facebook.

#	Name	Total Likes	People Talking	Daily Growth	Weekly Growth
1	Facebook for Ever…	80,790,898	2,818,833	+409,717	+3,094,252
2	Neymar Jr. Oficial	4,445,814	192,932	+57,585	+994,630
3	Titanic	22,183,616	929,544	+116,079	+972,265
4	Adele	27,024,951	768,499	+100,039	+845,502
5	LMFAO	16,163,504	670,358	+105,064	+672,273
6	Eclipse	5,109,773	24,133	+3,285	+668,451
7	Cristiano Ronaldo 7	1,008,868	22,920	+660	+650,258
8	The Simpsons	49,359,384	698,323	+74,991	+612,437
9	Will Smith	30,236,479	542,234	+66,896	+582,162
10	Breaking Dawn	5,637,272	235,682	+33,741	+577,535
11	Bruno Mars	22,524,923	483,186	+69,259	+523,922
12	Shrek	24,984,423	451,007	+58,978	+497,385
13	Harry Potter	45,153,224	679,188	+56,735	+486,619
14	Samsung Mobile USA	4,753,967	493,589	+52,436	+461,300
15	Resident Evil 5	655,578	15,711	+177,775	+455,448
16	Pitbull	19,107,971	648,436	+60,939	+449,386
17	Jeremy Lin	954,881	552,606	+34,979	+438,508
18	Real Madrid C.F.	27,425,705	1,507,348	+47,111	+426,426
19	FC Barcelona	30,127,581	1,245,044	+54,251	+420,084
20	Snoop Dogg	17,334,450	468,430	+49,096	+407,855

Facebook for Every Phone grew by more than 3 million Likes during the past week. Users of Facebook’s feature phone app are prompted to Like the page when they log in. Sports pages, specifically football clubs and stars, were very popular. Footballers Neymar Jr. Oficial and Cristiano Ronaldo, as well football clubs Real Madrid C.F. and FC Barcelona made the list with growth in the hundreds of thousands. These pages post copious photos and videos related to game activity, rallying fans around the team.

Movie-related pages continue to be very popular, even when they don’t post very frequently. These pages are ready have a tremendous fan base, thus a single post generates a lot of activity. For example, a video on the “Eclipse” page received tens of thousands of Likes and a video on the “Titanic”  page received more than 2,500 comments.

Musicians continue to have momentum on Facebook. Adele, LMFAO, Pitbull and Snoop Dogg made the top 20 this week. These artist pages post photos and other info from tours or performances.

Finally, the popular TV show “The Simpsons” continues to see growth on page based on a combination of popularity and frequent posts, and the Samsung Mobile USA page is currently giving away phones and other related prizes. The Samsung page seems to be running Facebook ads — including premium logout ads — to get new fans.

Facebook today officially introduced its Preferred Marketing Developer program with 141 new partner companies.

The PMD program combines the Preferred Developer Consultant and Marketing API programs to create a unified certification process for companies that build marketing tools on top of the Facebook platform. Partners will receive badges based on their qualifications in page management tools, ad management tools, app development and insights products.

This change will help brands, agencies and others navigate the growing ecosystem of companies selling software and services related to Facebook marketing.

Facebook includes 232 companies based in 35 countries in its program. People looking for one of these tools or services can use an improved directory that includes new filters for type of business model and customers they serve. (See right.)

Companies in the PMD program get additional support from Facebook platform representatives, but generally do not get early access to features. Some PMDs are invited to participate in beta tests, but doing so requires developers to complete a number of tasks and provide required feedback. If they don’t, they can be suspended from future beta tests for 90 days.

Facebook first announced that it would bring its preferred developers and Ads API partners under a single program in November 2011. Last month we learned details about the four categories Facebook would assign badges for. Before today, there were about 90 preferred developers and 50 Ads API partners providing managed services and software tools to help businesses create and optimize campaigns on the site. When the program launched in 2009, only 14 companies were included.

Developers can learn more about the program and apply here.

Converse shoe company topped our list of the fastest-growing Facebook pages this week. There were several movies, musicians, brands such a Target and Walmart, a few games, and a few sports–related pages comprised the rest of the list.

Pages on our list this week grew from between 285,200 to 3.3 million Likes. We compile this list with our PageData tool, which tracks page growth across Facebook.

	Name	Likes	Talking About	Daily Growth	Weekly Growth
1.	Converse	27,447,210	147,681	+840,161	+3,388,098
2.	Step Up Movie	10,637,515	163,693	+344,929	+942,550
3.	Titanic	20,093,413	1,163,678	+186,181	+776,244
4.	LMFAO	15,116,759	858,346	+44,028	+588,567
5.	Gabriel García M…	1,266,812	39,848	+99,656	+508,186
6.	Resident Evil 5	655,578	15,711	+177,775	+455,448
7.	Adele	25,356,720	370,641	+144,493	+447,608
8.	Jeremy Lin	954,881	552,606	+34,979	+438,508
9.	The Simpsons	48,081,353	472,415	+120,916	+428,449
10.	Target	10,951,726	406,182	+49,372	+391,328
11.	Nemo	8,994,798	384,932	+64,534	+385,154
12.	One Direction	4,553,606	523,134	+64,165	+338,499
13.	Texas HoldEm Poker	60,123,032	549,424	+36,533	+329,525
14.	Walmart	14,707,249	456,059	+48,667	+310,030
15.	FC Barcelona	29,326,949	957,956	+64,276	+309,617
16.	Simpsons	2,814,750	353,210	+15,940	+308,609
17.	I ♥ THE WEEKEND	7,147,466	360,160	+7,301	+294,777
18.	Halil Sezai	977,670	28,812	+51,444	+288,540
19.	Samsung Mobile USA	3,940,603	333,818	+38,392	+288,078
20.	Avatar	29,513,754	345,098	+70,888	+285,194

Converse grew tremendously over the course of a few days, possibly as the result of a page post ad. The page shared a photo of a 1917 model of one of its shoes. The photo received 29,000 Likes and about 1,500 shares. Converse typically gets a few hundred or thousand Likes on its posts.

Nobel Prize winning author Gabriel García Marquez saw a new surge in Likes and engagement with photos that include quotes in English and Spanish.

Movie pages on the list seemed to be the result of page consolidations, although the recent re-release of “Titanic” in 3-D has kept the page on our list for several weeks now. Popular artists LMFAO and Adele, as well as United Kingdom boy band One Direction and Turkish singer Halil Sezai also made the list.

As we mentioned, the rest of the list included a few sports pages — basketball player Jeremy Lin and football club FC Barcelona, which recently started writing its posts in multiple languages. “The Simpsons” continues to grow, especially after revealing the true location of the show’s fictional hometown. Samsung, Target and Walmart have grown as the result of Sponsored Story campaigns.

On average, brands advertising on Facebook pay more per click than social game companies do, according to data provided to us by third-party vendor AdParlor.

Facebook ad costs continue to rise across a number of industries as competition increases, particularly among consumer brands and the hardcore social game sector. Advertisers can use this information to better understand their own Facebook ad performance.

The social network does not do much to help advertisers interpret the results of their campaigns. CPCs and clickthrough rates mean little without averages to benchmark against, but advertisers must look to third parties for comparison. A recent survey from Social Fresh found advertisers self-reporting an average CPC of $0.80. This latest data from AdParlor, a Facebook Ads API partner, shows daily fluctuations in average CPC but the rate is always below $0.80.

For social games, average CPCs are even lower. AdParlor CEO Hussein Fazal says this is because social game advertisers can define narrow targets that result in higher CTRs and lower CPCs than most brands can achieve. However, there is variation within the social game category. Hardcore games — those designed for longer session times that include more strategy or combat– have higher CPCs than virtual world games, including simulation games, pets and city games. Both of these categories have higher CPCs than casual social games, like puzzles and trivia. This could be related to there being more competition in the hardcore social gaming space, but Fazal also believes that hardcore games are getting better at monetizing and so they are able to pay more to acquire each new user.

AdParlor’s data comes from more than 500 clients across a range of industries. This first graph shows how CPC compares for brands and agencies versus social game developers. It represents a sample size of 100 million clicks between June 23, 2011 and Feb. 27, 2012. The thick blue line represents average CPC rates for agencies and brands. The thick green line represents average CPC rates for social games. The thin lines are the corresponding linear regressions for each category.

This graph takes a deeper dive into the differences among types of social games. Although it covers a shorter period, Jan. 1 through Feb. 17, it represents a sample size of 150 million clicks. The thick blue line represents hardcore social games, red is virtual world games and green is casual games. Again the thin lines are the linear regressions for each category.

Ad agency DDB New York developed an alternative to Facebook’s Like button called “I Care,” which publishers can embed on their sites and users can click to show support for a cause. MTV is already using the button on its website for social activism and the effort has gotten coverage from a number of industry blogs and publications.

It’s a great idea, but the campaign is missing something: Open Graph integration.

Here we’ll explain what Open Graph is and explore how DDB could benefit from implementing it, so that marketers can get an idea how Facebook can be applied to campaigns in ways beyond fan pages and ads to generate Likes.

What is Open Graph?

Open Graph is the way that Facebook organizes the information and connections on its platform. It is an extension of Facebook’s social graph that anyone can build upon, whether by adding simple a Like button to a website or developing full-scale integrations like Spotify’s music service.

When Facebook began, users could only connect with other users. With the introduction of the Open Graph protocol in 2010, users became able to connect with objects on Facebook and around the web by clicking Like. By adding a bit of code to their sites, publishers could turn any webpage into a Facebook object. That means the page becomes indexed in Facebook search and gets added to user’s profiles.

Last year, Facebook expanded Open Graph to allow users to connect to objects with new verbs besides Like. These include read, watch, listen and play. Similar to how developers can create objects, they can now create actions. When a third-party website or app implements Open Graph actions, that app can automatically generate stories in News Feed, Ticker and Timeline. This democratizes Facebook in a way because it means the site can be filled with actions that users take and objects users interact with all over the web and on native mobile apps, not just what users do directly on the social network.

When we write about “Open Graph apps” on Inside Facebook, we are referring to any Facebook canvas app, mobile app or website that has integrated “actions” as a means for users to share their activity back on Facebook. Unlike traditional Facebook apps, Open Graph apps can publish stories automatically rather than having to continually prompt users to post things to their Walls. Another unique feature is the monthly and yearly summaries that developers can customize to tell interesting stories about users over time.

How could DDB use Open Graph?

DDB New York’s Chief Creative Officer Matt Eastwood tells us the agency came up with the idea for the I Care button after the tsunami in Japan last year. He says there was so much activity in social media, but “Like” wasn’t an appropriate expression for the articles and photos being shared. Although the agency didn’t have a client to develop the I Care button for, it decided to work on the project during off-hours and release it for anyone to use. MTV Voices partnered with DDB for the launch, which was covered on Fast Company, Creativity Online and other industry news sites. The button is still in beta, and Eastwood says the agency will continue to make improvements. Here are some recommendations for how Open Graph could help sustain the campaign.

When users see an I Care button, they can click it to add to the tally of people supporting a cause. Currently, however, there’s little payoff in doing so. An I Care statement isn’t seen by anyone unless the user chooses to share the activity on Facebook, but that requires two more clicks. With Open Graph integration, the I Care app would ask for posting permission one time and then would be able to instantly send stories back to Facebook whenever users click the I Care button on other sites. Pinterest does this with the Pin It button and now Spotify does so with its Play button. The I Care button — and any website it is included on — would likely get more attention if it was synced with Facebook in this way.

The I Care button would also benefit from the social context that helped make the Like button so popular. When users visit a webpage that their friends have Liked, they will see those friends’ names and photos. With Open Graph, developers can do the same thing. For example, Hulu shows users which of their friends have watched an episode and most social news apps show users who has read an article. The I Care button might be more powerful if users could see who else they know cares about the same topic.

As mentioned before, monthly and yearly summaries are a key feature that results from Open Graph integration. Many users might like to look back at all the things they’ve said they care about, just like they can see all the books they read on Goodreads or all the movies they rated on Rotten Tomatoes. Currently there’s no way for a user to keep track of where they’ve clicked the Care button or reverse the action.

In addition to supporting Timeline summaries, Facebook generates aggregate News Feed stories based on trends it picks up on in Open Graph activity. A common example is “[a number] of your friends listened to [an artist] on Spotify.” When developers create a more detailed map for their actions and objects, Facebook can return additional stories like “[a number] of your friends listened to songs from [a particular year] on Spotify.”

For the I Care button, this could lead to additional impressions and awareness through aggregate News Feed stories. Someone could click I Care on a news article about global warming and another person could click I Care on a story about overfishing, and Facebook could tell those people’s friends “2 of your friends care about environmental issues.”

DDB indicated that it might start compiling information from the I Care button to show what issues are trending. By integrating Facebook more deeply, the agency could collect additional demographic data about who clicks the button so that it could highlight topics that are most important to people of different genders, nationalities or political affiliations, for instance.

There is also the option of targeting advertising based on Open Graph activity. Right now, the feature is in beta for Ads API partners only, but essentially advertisers can explicitly define its target audience by actions and objects rather than simply Likes and interests. DDB could eventually use its app to direct relevant ads — maybe a Sponsored Story about a new electric car — to users who say they care about the environment.

And that’s something marketers really care about.

For more insights into Facebook marketing and advertising strategies, see Inside Network’s Facebook Marketing Bible.

Social media software company FanRx today added an option for artists to embed their songs from Spotify on Facebook tab applications using the company’s free Facebook Page Builder.

This feature is possible as a result of the new Spotify “play button” announced today. Web publishers who include a short piece of code on their sites can display a button that lets registered Spotify users begin streaming music instantly. FanRx, formerly known as BandRx, was a launch partner and so is the first to bring the functionality to Facebook tabs.

Artists choose which songs to feature, then when users click the play button, the song begins playing in the Spotify desktop app — launching the player if it is not already open. Users who do not have Spotify yet will be prompted to download the app and create an account using their Facebook login. (See how it works here.)

Spotify has a free, ad-supported service, as well as subscription tiers up to $9.99 per month for unlimited streaming and additional features. Users must have a Facebook account to join Spotify. The app prompts users to share their listening activity on Facebook through Open Graph integration, but it is not a requirement, and there is an “incognito mode” to temporarily disable sharing.

Since September 2011‘s launch of Open Graph, Spotify songs have been playable from Facebook News Feed, Ticker and Timeline. Users can start and pause music while they browse the social network, and even have an option to listen to a song simultaneously with friends. On artists’ pages, Facebook highlights tracks your friends have listened to.

Now with FanRx, artists can customize which songs to include on their tab applications. Although page tabs are declining in use since Facebook removed the default landing tab option with the Timeline redesign, it is still possible to point ads to specific tabs or share direct links in posts to fans. We’ve seen a number of band-focused applications trying to innovate to maintain relevance.

Spotify opened its platform to third-party developers in November 2011. We could see a similar platform-on-a-platform model from Instagram, which has some APIs available in beta. For example, users can take photos using the Hipstamatic mobile app, then publish them through Instagram, which can then share to Facebook. With Spotify, developers like FanRx can include song widgets in their apps so that users can play music from Spotify, which can publish back to Facebook. The social network might watch Spotify’s growth as a platform and take cues for how it might want to handle Instagram since it acquired the company on Monday.

Social marketing platform Involver today introduced a visual tool for building Facebook applications and other customizable experiences.

The Visual SML is an addition to Involver’s Social Markup Language, a system that enables front-end developers to code apps more efficiently. Now with the visual tool, coding isn’t necessary. Marketers can drag and drop widgets, like videos, photo galleries or contest forms, onto a canvas that can be used on Facebook tabs, websites and mobile landing pages.

Using a technology platform like Involver could help large brands and agencies save time and money by making development more efficient. For example, Involver manages changes in the Facebook API, so when Facebook tweaks its code, Involver updates SML accordingly. Developers can maintain the same SML tags and avoid having to fix their existing applications. The cost of a yearly license, however, prevents the platform from being an option for small businesses or agencies that don’t regularly produce apps for their clients.

Companies like Vitrue and Wildfire also offer drag-and-drop tools, but Roland Smart, Sr. Director of Product Marketing at Involver, says the difference with Involver’s product is how designers and front-end switch between the visual tool and SML code.

“[For brands and agencies] there are fundamental differences between the marketing side of the house and the development side of the house,” Smart says. “Now they can both be in the same platform and work together.”

Smart says the platform is useful for large companies that might have front end developers on the corporate side, but not among the regional offices. Corporate can use the SML code and the regional marketers can use the visual tool.

Interestingly, Facebook is a client of Involver’s. The social network uses SML for some of its applications, including the Super Bowl Ad Meter it released in partnership with USA Today. That app, which let users rate Super Bowl commercials, integrated Open Graph and was accessible from multiple Facebook pages, USAToday.com and the mobile web.

“The Simpsons” topped our list of the fastest growing Facebook pages this week. There was also “Titanic,” the band LMFAO, several sports stars, a few blog-related pages, Miracle-Gro and Android app player for Windows PC BlueStacks.

Pages on our list this week grew from between 285,000 to 1.9 million Likes. We compile this list with our PageData tool, which tracks page growth across Facebook.

	Name	Likes	Talking About	Daily Growth	Weekly Growth
1.	The Simpsons	44,388,546	416,148	+835,279	+1,913,849
2.	LMFAO	13,964,422	2,327,809	+136,306	+1,574,657
3.	Dwyane Wade	5,206,525	34,869	+2,401	+709,534
4.	I ♥ THE WEEKEND	6,606,346	668,306	+55,773	+539,287
5.	Resident Evil 5	655,578	15,711	+177,775	+455,448
6.	Last Day of School	6,312,351	661,527	+35,405	+441,777
7.	Jeremy Lin	954,881	552,606	+34,979	+438,508
8.	Chicken Soup for …	525,922	5,512	+5,686	+418,915
9.	Mc Lovin	4,403,756	482,270	+34,748	+413,329
10.	Forever Alone	1,843,527	479,678	+38,449	+399,371
11.	The Truman Show	368,284	358	+113	+364,700
12.	BlueStacks	589,748	266,681	+63,643	+316,351
13.	Miracle-Gro	1,121,750	686,078	+29,902	+313,355
14.	Texas HoldEm Poker	59,469,048	538,264	+47,177	+307,692
15.	Titanic	18,899,103	617,864	+33,334	+296,471
16.	Target	10,322,110	404,038	+7,030	+295,323
17.	Enemy at the Gates	307,448	242	-72	+291,809
18.	Nemo	8,410,373	389,243	+27,081	+290,031
19.	I dont care how o…	863,169	364,008	+20,399	+287,133
20.	ThaiMarketing	480,837	455,786	+22,077	+285,040

As mentioned, “The Simpsons” topped our list with almost 2 million new Likes. A few other movies made the list as a result of what appeared to be page consolidations, as the Likes spiked tremendously over a period of a few days. In the case of Nemo, an updated cover photo seemed to generate activity on the page. Then, “Titanic” was very popular; the page is ripe with all manner of promotions related to the upcoming 3D re-release of the film.

The band LMFAO was second on the list; during the past week the page shared several popular events, including awards nominations, media appearances, a band anniversary and President Obama singing one of their songs. There were two athletes who rode their popularity to our list, Dwyane Wade and Jeremy Lin. There were some fun, unofficial pages that made the list, including I ♥ THE WEEKEND, Forever Alone and I dont care how o… These are often humorous and inspire high engagement by users.

BlueStacks, an Android app player for Windows PC, makes its first appearance on the PageData charts this week. The beta version of the app just went live this week. Miracle-Gro continued to be popular, probably due to its FarmVille integration, since there was no apparent reason for growth on the page alone.