Facebook will allow a small number of public figures to verify their accounts beginning today, a spokesperson from the company confirms.

Users with verified accounts will appear more often in “People To Subscribe To” recommendations on the site, but unlike on Twitter and Google+, there will be no visual indication that a profile is official. These users will also have the option to display their more well-known pseudonyms, if applicable. For example, Curtis Jackson could choose to go by his stage name 50 Cent across the site, instead of displaying it as an alternate name as he does now. (See image below.)

Facebook says users with a large number of subscribers will see a notification to verify their accounts. Not everyone who allows subscribers will see this option, and for now, users cannot request to be verified.

What this does

For Facebook, verifying accounts seems to be about improving its recommendations systems. Recommendation modules around the site have been key to the growth of the social network’s new subscribe feature. This will ensure that Facebook is presenting users with the real profiles of people they’re in which interested.

Serving quality recommendations and being flexible about names helps Facebook compete with Twitter as a platform for asymmetrical relationships. Public figures who are known by pseudonyms will appreciate the option to display that name more prominently. A verified user’s birth name will still be shown in the About section of Timeline.

What this doesn’t do

Currently, there isn’t a way for users to definitively tell whether an account is the official profile of someone to whom they want to subscribe. There are already plenty of fake celebrity profiles on the site, and as more public figures begin to use Facebook, the number of impostors will likely increase. The company will need to do something to distinguish its verified accounts or work harder to eliminate the fakes.

Facebook didn’t offer details on how verification might affect search. Subscriber numbers do not currently seem to influence how a user is ranked in search. This is frustrating for users and could lead some people to connect with fake pages.

Facebook named Google as its prime competitor among others including Microsoft and Twitter in its filing for an initial public offering today.

The Securities and Exchange Commission requires a company to describe all the risk factors associated with investing in its business before it goes public. One of these issues for Facebook is “significant competition” from companies including Google, Microsoft and Twitter. The social network notes that Google or others could use dominant positions in one market to gain an advantage in one of Facebook’s areas of operation.

With 85 percent of its revenue coming from advertising, Facebook competes with both traditional and online media businesses. Advertisers tend to have fixed budgets, and the social network will have to continue to make a case for its ads and Sponsored Stories. We have seen businesses spent significant amounts to generate Likes for their pages, but it is unclear how much advertisers will devote to Facebook once they have amassed an audience. Facebook did not address this in the document today, but it is a trend to watch.

Also critical to maintaining and expanding its position as a display ad platform is user growth and engagement. If users spend less time on Facebook in favor of other social networks or offerings, the company will be negatively affected. It mentioned Google+, along with regional networks Cyworld (Korea), Mixi (Japan), Orkut (Brazil, India) and vKontakte in Russia. The company also recognizes that other Internet or mobile companies could offer products and services that compete with individual Facebook features. It didn’t name names, but these can include everything from Apple’s iMessenger to startups like Instagram.

Facebook acknowledged that Google in particular could gain a competitive advantage by integrating its social networking platform into its existing search product, web browser or mobile operating system. On these fronts, Facebook might have to spend significantly to acquire or partner with other companies. This will be difficult, though, as many companies in the position to help Facebook fight Google are threatened by other aspects of Facebook’s business.

Facebook’s heavy push of the subscribe feature has apparently paid off as thousands of journalists enabled subscribers after its launch in September, according to a note on the Journalists + Facebook page.

The social network’s outreach among public figures and the prominence it gives subscribe suggestions on the site show a level of commitment to taking away some of Twitter’s power and preventing Google+ from gaining traction as a source for news.

Journalists like Ann Curry, Nicholas Kristof, Katie Couric and Don Lemon have converted to Timeline and enabled subscribe. Some of these figures have hundreds of thousands of subscribers. More than 90 journalists from the Washington Post and more than 50 from The New York Times have made their profiles available to public subscribers, according to the Journalists + Facebook note. The Washington Post recently published a list of all its staff members who are accessible on Facebook.

Many users have been able to accumulate Facebook subscribers at a much faster rate than they gained Twitter followers. A sample of 25 journalists showed the average journalist had a 320 percent increase in subscribers since November 2011. This is largely due to the “People To Subscribe To” sidebar that shows up on several pages prompting users to follow updates from journalists, celebrities and other public figures. Of course, when one user subscribes to another, it generates a story in friends’ News Feeds in a way that Twitter hasn’t taken advantage of. (Twitter added an activity feed in August 2011, but users have to visit a separate tab to view it.) Facebook has also offered a subscribe button plugin for third-party sites and added a subscribe call to action within its comments plugin and the “page owners” section of pages.

Notably, Facebook has employees dedicated to outreach, not only to bring the right personalities to the platform but also to provide best practices. Journalist Program Manager Vadim Lavrusik has been extremely active in sharing examples of how reporters can use the social network and producing resources like the Facebook + Journalists note today, which included recommendations such as “reader shoutouts can increase feedback by as much as 4x.”

Twitter might have to start implementing changes or better courting public figures to convince them not to neglect Twitter in favor of Facebook. Google+ has an advantage with the way Google Search now displays results from its social network, which could help keep it in the race for public attention. But for Facebook, a key point will be letting users choose whether to post to subscribers or friends. Because posts have to be public for subscribers to see them, a user is forced to also share that content with friends. Unlike Twitter, users can only have one profile so they have to mix business and personal. Another issue is that Facebook does not have a way to designate a profile as “official,” which has long been a problem for pages. And because many people who have subscribers also have pages, the social network will need to determine how to balance these in search.

Black Friday features prominently in our campaigns this week as Toys “R” Us offered its catalog for download on Facebook and Walmart used an app to help users locate their nearest stores — and the deals to be had there. Macy’s also released an app designed to involve users in the company’s annual Thanksgiving parade, GLAAD’s Thanksgiving effort to promote LGBT equality, movie streaming, free handbags and more.

Below is an excerpt of this week’s full Featured Facebook Campaigns entry in the Facebook Marketing Bible, which also includes detailed breakdowns of over 100 other Facebook marketing campaigns by top-performing brands and other organization on Facebook.

The Great Big Toys “R” Us Book

Goal: Page Growth, Product Purchase, Brand Loyalty

Method: The Great Big Toys “R” Us book is available for download as a PDF on the company’s Page.

Core Mechanic: The app allows users to download the company’s toy catalog that includes holiday shopping specials for leisurely perusal. The company first began releasing the catalog on Facebook in 2009; at the time users could only peruse the catalog on Facebook, thus, the download represents the next level in marketing. The app also offers users the chance to sign up for mobile deals or emails.

Impact: The Page currently stands at 2.3 million and shows steady growth according to PageData.

Taco Cabana’s eClub Free Taco

Goal: Email Acquisition, Brand Loyalty, Product Purchase

Method: The Page’s Join Our eClub tab asks users to sign up for the company’s email list, taking them to the website to sign up in exchange for a free taco.

Core Mechanic: The free taco serves as a lure to bring customers into the social media and email offerings the company frequently launches, such as seasonal beverages or foods. The company has also been advertising the offer and its social media presence in-store to boost its email list.

Impact: The Page currently counts about 82,000 Likes and shows steady growth, according to PageData.

Want to learn how top brands are designing their Facebook marketing campaigns? See the Facebook Marketing Bible for detailed breakdowns of hundreds of Featured Campaigns by top-performing brands and businesses on Facebook.

Josh Elman has been in the trenches of product development since mid-1990s, with his resume reading like a who’s who of major web companies today. He started at Homestead and RealNetworks in the 1990s, and went on to hold key product roles at LinkedIn, Zazzle, Facebook and most recently Twitter.

But after 15 years building products, he recently became a principal at Silicon Valley venture firm Greylock Partners. We sat down with him recently to get his take on where Facebook and Twitter are going, and to learn more about his own plans now that he’s an investor.

Inside Facebook: If you were abandoned on an island for the rest of your life, would you rather be stuck with Mark Zuckerberg, Evan Williams or Jack Dorsey?

Josh Elman: Um, wow that’s a great question. I’d probably choose Ev. Ev, Zuck and Jack are great entrepreneurs, and I have massive respect for all three. But I’ve spent most of the most time with Ev and would love to spend more. Of the three, I feel closest and most stylistically connected to him. And I’d add Reid Hoffman to this list too — and should note that I’m happy to be working with him again.

IF: It’s 2011, and despite all the years of speculation about Facebook and Twitter killing each other, they are obviously coexisting now. But having worked at both companies, what do you predict for them (and other social platforms) in the future — let’s say in the next 5 years to keep that question somewhat focused?

JE: The way that I think about a lot of the opportunities in communication is: Where do we turn to as humans to find out what we care about in the world? In the past it was maybe newspapers, TV, radio. Now it’s mobile, iPads, computers, TV — we’re turning to all these different screens. But we really want an emotional connection to people we care about, to be more informed, and to be more able to react to conversations that are important and interesting around us.

There are three streams of important information. One of those, I think, is direct messages to me. That’s mostly email. I don’t know a single person who doesn’t do this (though I’m sure there are some) — the question of whether Facebook and Twitter can do to replace it gets asked a lot less now.

The second stream is what is happening with the people I love and care about. It’s obvious that Facebook has become that for everybody. When you want to know what’s going on with a friend, you have these incredible emotional moments on Facebook. You see them change jobs, celebrate their kids, share funny or important links.

The third stream is the world: What should I know about and care about? Everyone wants to know what’s happening. I think that Twitter is really redefining what that experience means. For example, recently there was an earthquake, and a lot of folks turned to Twitter to both share what happened and to verify what happened.

And for a lot of folks, there is a fourth stream — your work/professional stream. There are a lot of companies working on different facets of this between LinkedIn for your professional life, Google Apps, Salesforce, Asana, and more for your productivity. And email is still a huge component here.

IF: Right, that’s today, but all these companies are in some ways getting into each other’s turf.

JE: Think about it this way. If your favorite Italian restaurant hires a Japanese chef, who then starts doing Japanese noodles, you still wouldn’t go there for Japanese noodles unless it was the best Japanese noodles ever. You’d still want to go to an Italian restaurant for Italian food, or go to a Japanese restaurant for the noodles.

The specialized graphs of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn make them each incredibly long-term defensible businesses.

Twitter is so focused on staying simple, real-time — like Mac is so much simpler than Windows. Facebook, while some people say it’s too complex, has grown to more than 800 million people worldwide. It’s clearly not too complex.

Humans will go to whatever is best, most visceral.

Facebook’s frictionless sharing is a big opportunity to pivot from connecting people and more to connecting info. That’s going to be a change for the way that people use Facebook, and I’m not sure if that will ultimately happen. But it’s a great move in many respects — Spotify’s new integration means that I can see if Eric is listening to Bieber again, and jab him about it. When we launched Facebook Connect, we thought that Facebook wasn’t just going to be a social network site for communicating with your friends. It was that you were going to go to have all sorts of great experiences. On the phone, web, offline locations, wherever — it makes us more connected as people, and helps serendipity happen.

IF: What about Google+?

JE: I have huge respect for them. They’ve had a great launch and done something most people in the tech industry had doubts about — whether Google could launch a compelling social product.

But it’s still incredibly early to tell if it’s mainstream and able to tap into visceral elements like Facebook and Twitter. It’s enabling certain types of conversations between people — big conversations, real-time debates, it’s more similiar to what we’ve seen on indie blogs than Facebook or Twitter.

IF: It feels more public than Facebook, but private enough that you know your audience….

JE: Yeah, and the interface naturally enables that. Facebook doesn’t always have great topical discussion.

It’ll be exciting to see how Google+ expands to other services.

IF: How do Facebook’s latest f8 launches change what developers should focus on?

JE: They introduced probably the most important change since at least 2008 when they did a big shift from profile boxes to make the news feed central. The idea of the ticker is transformative. Now frictionless sharing creates way to share everything, naturally broadcasted without being too heavy or too spammy or too awkward. In the past, it’d be annoying. Now it lets you find out what your friends are doing at a much bigger scale — great insight into lots of friends.

You can start to build really compelling discovery, like with Spotify — seeing that ten of your friends listened to Bieber.

The launch creates new opportunities for every kind of vertical or business where people interact around certain thing would bring other friends in. Companies who take advantage of it first are going to get big benefits.

Overall, it’s better alignment between Facebook and developers — broadcasting what you actually do which gets more friends sharing , and even more discovery.

IF: How should developers be trying to harness the Twitter platform?

JE: Twitter’s platform has only gotten stronger because Twitter now has 100 million active users. Comscore shows much higher visits, not just users. So it creates even more opportunities to help people create, interact with, and consume more content through Twitter. Twitter has talked about curation, analytics, and a few other platform businesses.

But the thing about building for any platform is that the moment you start building for one, you need to remember you’re building your own company and business. If I were to go build this great new restaurant discovery app, I’d want to use Twitter to share more, as a source of content and amplifer. But I would be focused on restaurant discovery, not being “X for Twitter.” The same is exactly true for Facebook.

IF: How are you approaching this from the investing perspective?

JE: I’m brand-new to this side, and it’s quite a bit different than the operating side. A lot of what I’m doing is listening and helping teams that we’re meeting as well as in the portfolio in any way that I can. Through my career, I’ve always been super excited about creating networks of people that enable new forms of communication and connection. Whether that’s Linkedin or Zazzle (connecting designers and artwork with buyers), or Facebook or Twitter, I’ve always been compelled by helping the founders realize these huge visions and build and grow these networks and platforms.

A lot of people talk about specific spaces like “mobile” or “social” or “local”. In general, I think any new consumer experience is going to tie in key elements and work across all of those. It needs to be relevant when you check the service on your phone and relevant when you want to pull something up on your TV in the future.

At Greylock, we tend to look for two things — a great product that people will want to use in meaningful ways, and durable distribution that ensures the product gets in the hands of as many users as possible.

Mostly I’m looking for great teams of people with big visions and a deep understanding and excitement about the path it takes to build a long-lasting company.

[Photo via Greylock Partners]

Hearsay Social, an enterprise software-as-a-service Facebook Page and social media management company, has raised an $18 million Series B round led by New Enterprise Associates. The money will be used to hire for its sales and engineering teams, and NEA’s Jon Sakoda will join the board, bringing along enterprise sales experience

Hearsay Social also added several new features to its product for companies with a corporate / local structure, including granular roles management, and the ability to run integrated social campaigns that combine Facebook ads, Page posts, and Page tab applications.

The funding and features will help Hearsay Social address the social marketing needs of more corporations that oversee many local branches, and box out more general brand-focused Facebook Page management companies.

Hierarchical Page Management

Hearsay Social launched in February to become the only company focused on addressing the problems of local branch social media management and regulatory compliance for companies with both a corporate Facebook Page and Pages for each of their franchises. Corporations could use it to monitor the performance of their local branches, and deliver Page posts and applications to them for publishing.

With unique features, powerful Silicon Valley angels backing it, and deep-pocketed potential corporate clients, Hearsay Social had the power to disrupt more established players in the Facebook Page management industry. Early results showed that the product could help corporations achieve full regulatory compliance across their social media presences and attain more fans.

At that time, Facebook had no user interface or API designed for managing businesses with a hierarchical corporate / local structure. Hearsay Social worked with Facebook, and earlier this month the social network began testing both a basic UI for managing “parent” and “child” Pages, as well as an API that lets corporate admins make changes to settings or install applications on multiple local branch Pages simultaneously.

While these additions provides some rudimentary corporate / local functionality for those without a third-party tool, the API also strengthens Hearsay Social’s product. Facebook’s native tool only supports two-tier hierarchies, while Hearsay Social can support many levels and different sets of permissions for each.

Funding and Features

NEA and previous investor Sequoia Capital have just put $18 million towards building out the Hearsay Social team, currently led by CEO Clara Shih, author of The Facebook Era. Shih tells us that “on the hiring front, sales and engineering are top priorities, but we’re hiring across the board, every department.” NEA’s Sakoda, formerly of IMlogic, acquired by Symantec, will lend enterprise sales expertise to the growing team tasked with getting huge, often multi-national corporations to execute their social media marketing through Hearsay Social.

Thanks to the product’s new integrated social campaigns feature, clients can schedule and run coordinated marketing campaigns that tie together Facebook ads, Facebook Page tab applications, and Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn posts. For example, State Farm insurance could install a promotional Facebook app on the Pages of all its local branches, run localized Facebook ads pointing to the app, and post links to the app on the news feed from all the Pages every four hours.

Shih explained to us that this “lets corporate bundle up its marketing genius” and ship it out to local branches that wouldn’t be able to design or execute such sophisticated campaigns. Ads are run through the Facebook Ads API, which allows the roughly two dozen companies with access to efficiently run Facebook ads at a massive scale. Apps used in integrated campaigns can be pulled from Hearsay Social’s basic suite, but clients can also integrate apps developed for them by their agencies.

Hearsay Social now also include the Rogue Page Finder, which identifies local branches with social media presences that haven’t yet been brought under a corporation’s control, as well as unofficial fan-created presences. Corporations can monitor the performance and regulatory compliance of these presences on Facebook, Twitter, and Yelp, so they can decide whether to contact the hosting Platform and have them shut down or rolled into their own official presence.

Lastly, Hearsay Social now lets clients customize granular roles and permissions for all users. They can permit admins at certain levels of hierarchy to post, edit, view analytics, and use other specific parts of the product. Shih tells us one client is using the feature to set up different roles for all twelve levels of its hierarchy.

The tool has proved useful for attaining Facebook fans. Hearsay Social says that local branch agents using it gained over three times more fans than those without it. Once Google+ releases brand pages and an API, Hearsay Social will support that platform as well. Shih tells us “Brands are asking about Google+. People are kicking the tires and trying to understand if there will be traction.”

Shih believes her licensable tool can integrate naturally into the marketing flows of large corporations, and that it “leaves plenty on the table for media buyers and creative agencies.” Regarding the trend of partnerships and acquisitions in the Page management industry, Shih says there’s a”healthy level of consolidation. In terms of the landscape, I still see a number of Page management companies that can’t divest themselves from the agency model, which makes them less attractive. You really need to work closely with a brand’s ecosystem of partners.”

She adds that there’s room for other Page management companies because there’s “plenty of brands without a local presence. We’re laser focused on global-local brands, and we can go deep because of our focus.”

Local branches are able to cultivate an intimate connection between a brand and its customers. Taking advantage of location-based technology such as Facebook Places and Check-In Deals and running coordinated marketing campaigns requires more expertise than most local branch managers have, though, so expect growth for corporate / local Page management tools like Hearsay Social as more global businesses invest in social media.

The following is an excerpt. The complete article, available in our Facebook Marketing Bible, includes more key differences between Twitter and Facebook, Twitter mistakes to avoid, and how to optimize your marketing strategy for the two platforms.

Facebook is not Twitter, and Twitter is not Facebook.

For veteran users of both platforms, this statement is well understood. But for marketers and brands new to either network, or for those with an extensive level of experience in one but not the other, the differences are not immediately apparent.

In this article, we compare brand Twitter Profiles to Facebook Pages, looking at the ways in which one is different to the other and the pros (and cons) each platform offers to the marketer.

How Do Facebook and Twitter Compare?

While the marketer’s aspirations for both platforms are similar – namely, to build a large and engaged audience to raise brand awareness and drive footfall – the manner in which each network and audience is approached and cultivated needs to be tailored specifically to that network.

Facebook and Twitter have many apparent similarities, both in functionality and in jargon, including:

• Usernames
• Profile Pages
• Avatars
• Status Updates
• Tagging

Both platforms also provide an outstanding way for businesses to market themselves to users, and offer first line customer support. However, the use of similar terminology aside, the ways in which these features are both implemented and received are often very different.

Size

Perhaps the most important difference between Facebook and Twitter is the size of the respective networks. As of July 2011, Facebook said it had over 750 million registered monthly active users. Twitter is cagey with the release of its user data but recent estimations put the platform at somewhere between 200 and 300 million users. However, these numbers only reflect registered accounts — the active user count on Twitter is considerably smaller. For example, third party measurement firm comScore shows it reaching 139 million unique users worldwide in May.

Post Frequency

Popular Facebook Pages typically post one or two updates every day. Whether a Page’s fans see that post is determined by the Facebook news feed EdgeRank algorithm. This is designed to show users the most relevant posts in the default Top News tab of the news feed, though users can also select to view a more comprehensive stream of updates in the Most Recent tab of the new feed.

The goal for marketers with Facebook Page posts is to attain the most Likes and comments, which increase a post’s EdgeRank, and drive re-shares of posts, which expose branded content to the friends of fans. Therefore, marketers should compose posts that they think will be the most engaging for their audience.

Popular Twitter profiles typically post much more frequently, sending out closer to a half dozen tweets a day. Twitter’s stream displays tweets in strict reverse chronological order. A profile followers are therefor only likely to see the tweets if they’re reading Twitter within a small timeframe after an update is published, or if it is retweeted by a high volume of people they follow.

The goal for marketers with Twitter updates is therefore to publish as much solid content as possible in order to catch followers when they’re reading. The real-time nature of Twitter also favors breaking news. The first profile to post about breaking news or something important will often receive many retweets. Therefore marketers should try to turn as much relevant content about their brand into tweets as possible, and move quickly when posting about topics that appeal to a wide audience.

Brand Presence vs. Broadcast Channel

Overall, however, Facebook appears to be most focused on reinforcing its focus on private, real-world connections through ongoing improvements to features like Groups and Chat. It is also focused on providing a platform for full-featured brand presences, where business can host engagement applications, contests, and rich media content as well as distribute updates. Twitter has meanwhile settled into becoming a broadcast channel for brands with some conversational functionality.

Facebook and Twitter share some similarities but these are considerably outweighed by the differences between the two networks and their audiences. Marketers looking for success on both must invest time and expertise into tailoring strategies that fit within the unique constraints of each.

Learn about more key differences — and how to optimize for each platform — in the full Facebook Marketing Bible article.

MyPad, arguably the most popular unofficial Facebook iPad app, will push the first phase of a Twitter integration this week. MyPad developer Loytr’s co-founder Cole Ratias also tells us the integration of a games section into the app has been a success, with roughly 30% of the app’s daily active users entering the gaming area and total ad impressions in the app doubling.

When the Twitter integration deepens, it will give MyPad and Loytr’s games partners more viral reach. This is because users are prompted to share when they open games via MyPad. Both the Twitter integration and the games portal could help MyPad differentiate itself in preparation of the launch of Facebook’s official iPad app.

Since Facebook chose not to release an official iPad app, several tablet-optimized native app Facebook clients popped up. These include Oecoway’s Friendly, currently the largest with 600,000 DAU but losing users, and MyPad2, currently second with 548,000 DAU but growing such that it should overtake Friendly by the end of the month. However, Loytr also has roughly 150,000 to 200,000 more users for MyPad1, which was built on touch.facebook.com opposed to the modern version that is built on the Graph API, meaning its total user count already surpasses Friendly.

These developers were able to make a comfortable living offering core Facebook functionality and some minor additional features such as color customization in ad-supported and premium versions of their apps.

However, it was recently reported that Facebook will launch an official iPad app. If the unofficial apps don’t differentiate themselves, they could see great volumes of their users slip away to Facebook’s app. New functionality, particularly the ability to play games, could also boost revenue through deals to distribute games from certain developers or increase ad impressions.

Facebook as a Mobile Games Portal

Loytr released a games integration with TinyCo and CrowdMob at the end of June such that shortcuts to the Apple App Store can be found in the MyPad navigation menu, allowing users to download games by these developers. Loytr gets a cut of the lifetime revenue generated by any users that click these bookmarks, including app and in-app purchases.

If a user has already downloaded a game and clicks the MyPad bookmark for it, the game launches via Fast App switching. Whenever users open a game through MyPad, they’re prompted to share the news of their usage with their Facebook friends, providing a virality bump to both Loytr and its game partners.

Apple prohibits iOS apps from offering their own proprietary app store, but referral links to Apple’s official App Store are permissible.

Now, Ratias tells us 20% of MyPad’s daily active users access the games bookmarks three to ten times a day. The engagement from the games bookmarks has helped push MyPad to double the number of ad impressions it shows per day since mid-April. This means MyPad is now showing about six to eight million ad impressions from Mobclix, Millennial and iAd per day.

These figures indicate the users want their Facebook tablet experience to include a portal to gaming. Third-party Facebook iPad app developers who take this approach can earn money and protect themselves from the official app’s launch. However, the data also bodes well for an official Facebook iPad app that includes its own games portal, possibly through a Facebook HTML5 mobile site.

Ratias says its developer partners are “pretty happy. They’ve seen good lift from the distribution and reengagement from users coming back to our platform to launch their apps. Currently the list of games is highly curated, but Ratias tells us Loytr is looking for more game developer partners. He says some more game sorting options would be required if it eventually offered dozens or even hundreds of games.

Loytr strategy of offering iOS games is certainly a better approach than Oecoway’s plan, which its founder told us is to essentially do nothing different to prepare for the official Facebook iPad app’s release. If the official app includes a games portal, even one that distributes Facebook and not iOS games, third-party app developers may need more differentiation points. Which brings us to Twitter.

Retweet Facebook Updates

MyPad will slowly begin to integrate Twitter into its Facebook client. To start, a version of the app currently awaiting Apple’s approval will allow users to retweet Facebook updates by them and their friends. When users are viewing a news feed or wall story, they can on it to bring up feedback options including Like, comment, and now retweet. Status updates and URL-shortened links to photos and videos can all be retweeted.

Soon, MyPad will allow users to view their own Twitter stream, as well as Twitter profiles, mentions, and direct messages. Ratias tells us the company is also looking into other social network integrations, which we assume could mean LinkedIn, or eventually even Google+.

Ratias tells us the next release of MyPad will prompt users to tweet when they open games through the app, and that this added distribution channel was a core reason the company chose to integrate Twitter.

Building straight forward third-party iPad Facebook clients may not be a safe business for long. But building a combined Facebook and Twitter client with a portal to curated set of great games could be a sustainable business regardless of Facebook’s official offering.

Campaigns we featured this week used a few interesting and new ways of reaching out to Facebook users to grow their Pages, strengthen brand loyalty or align themselves with charitable causes. T.G.I. Friday’s let users buy each other beers with e-gift cards, State Farm Latino let users help Latin America by playing a game, Olympic Paint asked users to make their walls talk and Bergdorf Goodman takes fan engagement to a new level by asking its Facebook fans to become models for its latest campaign.

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.

T.G.I. Friday’s Buy a Beer

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

Core Mechanic: A Facebook tab and app that allows users to send their Facebook friends a virtual gift card for a beer at T.G.I. Friday’s.

Method: The Buy A Beer tab on the T.G.I. Friday’s Page allows users to send an electronic gift card to their friends redeemable for an actual beer at the restaurant chain. The campaign is part of the chain’s in-store “Summer of Beer” push; users can send up to five beers to their friends at $5 per beer, or send a non-alcoholic beverage or food item.

Impact: The T.G.I. Friday’s Page has over 583,000 Likes and affords users several opportunities to share this offer with their friends via Facebook or Twitter. The launch of the app on June 9th caused the rate of new Likes to the Page to increase by roughly 25% in the few days afterwards.

State Farm Latino & Soccket’s Juega Hoy. Ilumina el Mañana.

Goal: Engagement, Product Purchase, Brand Loyalty, Network Exposure, Charity

Core Mechanic: A Juega e Ilumina tab with a wide variety of ways that users can interact with State Farm/Soccket’s campaign. The campaign aims to help provide Latin American countries with access to electricity.

Method: Users who visit the Juega Hoy. Ilumina el Mañana tab have ample opportunities to interact with videos, games, and spread the word about them. By interacting with these modules, users earn donations of Soccket balls (which generate electricity) to the region, while gaining the chance to download an exclusive iPhone app. On the tab there’s the option to use in English or Spanish, watch videos, Like and Share interesting content, support your favorite Latin American country and play a fun soccer game.

Impact: The State Farm Latino Page hosting the content has grown to 41,400 Likes, which could have been further boosted by this campaign had it been Like-gated. Overall the campaign’s hook of drawing users to participate and spend time on the site by offering a charity donation in exchange seems to be successful. What’s more, the actual integration is of a very high quality and this is reflected in the user’s experience playing the games or watching the videos. Companies can use similar alliances with charities to inspire more engagement with their campaigns, even if the actual value of the donations is very small.

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.

Cost-per-action social media and search advertising service Taykey has just closed a $9 million second round of funding led by Sequoia Capital.

The company tracks social media mention and search trends in real-time to take advantage of urgent advertising opportunities and interest-based targeting parameters to power Facebook, Twitter, and search campaigns. Here’s a closer look at what it provides to advertisers on and off Facebook.

How Taykey Works

Let’s take a look at an example of an advertising campaign powered by Taykey. A singing contest television show such as X-Factor could hire Taykey for a month-long campaign on what amounts to cost per Facebook Like model, where the client pays a price per Like and sets a goal of the total Likes they want. Taykey would then monitor social networks, news, blogs, and searches for trends in the behavior and interests of the show’s target age and location demographic. It could determine what other TV shows or musical artists the audience Likes, and then run a series Facebook ad campaigns for the X-Factor Page targeted at people with those Likes.

Taykey co-founder and CEO Amit Avner tells us that “if X-Factor judge Paula Abdul falls off the stage, we’ll know in five seconds and go buy ‘Paula Abdul’ Google search keyword ads” to preempt the oncoming rush of searches for that keyword. Taykey might also purchase Twitter trending topics, or ads on Bing, Myspace, Digg in an effort to drive its own cost per Facebook fan as low as possible to make the maximum margin on the deal with X-Factor. Otherwise, X-Factor might just target 18-35 year old women, whereas Taykey would target those with interests related to the show, such as those who Like competing show American Idol.

Taykey says its patent-pending algorithm mines data from across the web, deduces keywords and sentiment, and maps the data to demographic and psychographic profiles. It then specifically targets those with the right profile, relieving brands from having to constantly discover new targets. Without using cookies or tracking of individuals, it shifts spend from one trend to the next attain the optimal CPA.

Avner explains to us that brands advertising on Facebook often target an age, gender, and location demographic that is too wide and unfocused, leading to lower conversion and rapid burnout. Taykey pinpoints the interests of these audiences to run a series of campaigns that keep conversion rates higher over time than more general campaigns. For instance, instead of targeting 18-24 year old males in New York City that Like ‘hip hop’, Taykey would determine specific artists such as “Jay-Z”, or television shows such as ’106th & Park’ to target the fans of.

Taykey and Real-Time Facebook Advertising

The 19-employee Tel Aviv-based company was founded by three former members of the Israeli Defense Ministry’s intelligence arm, and has now secured a total of $12 million in funding. Several Fortune 100 companies have already run campaigns targeted by Taykey’s algorithm, including Pepsi, for which it attained 46,000 Likes in two days at half the projected spend.

It will use use the new round of funding, joined by Softbank Capital and Crescent Point, to hire engineers in Tel Aviv, Israel and to build out a New York sales office.

The “Related Adverts” real-time advertising system Facebook is testing that displays ads related to the content of a user’s most recent status update or wall post could be very useful to Taykey’s business. “We’d love to get in on it as soon as possible” says Avner of the beta product that doesn’t allow advertisers to choose if or which traditional interest-targeted Facebook ads are displayed in real-time.

As more brands realize the concrete value of Facebook fans, CPA ad services such as Taykey will become crucial to attaining large volumes of fans at the lowest possible price. While more well established Ads API tools and services will likely continue to manage much of the Facebook spend of the world’s biggest brands, real-time focused advertising services can complement a marketing mix by exploiting fleeting low-cost pockets of conversions.