Context Optional – The leading provider of social marketing solutions to global brands and advertising agencies

Want to know the best people to build you Facebook applications? Want to get your Facebook Page up and running for your business? If you are in the market for a Facebook Consultant, Facebook is now offering the Preferred Developer Consultant program. The service is essentially a directory of all the partners who can help you with building out your organization’s Facebook presence.

Currently there are 14 companies being featured in the new directory and there’s really no way to apply to be in the directory aside from being connected with the people over at Facebook. Over the past couple years we have written extensively about some of the campaigns being run on Facebook by many of the companies being listed in the directory today. I’m sure there are many other companies which provide services as well, but this new directory is set up to promote “Facebook approved” consultants.

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Chase, the financial services conglomerate, started a Facebook campaign two weeks ago, asking users to tell it how to donate $5 million to charity. To do so, it had Context Optional build it a full-featured application, Chase Community Giving. The app has reached more than 844,000 monthly active users as of today — fast growth by any standard.

It’s almost as if the app is a social game, although the dynamics are different, and the app has most likely used ads and a wide variety of other marketing efforts to grow.

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This is a contributed article written by Context Optional CEO Kevin Barenblat

Facebook recently announced a series of changes to its platform, and the roadmap has a substantial impact on how brands approach building a Facebook presence. While changes to Facebook’s platform are nothing new, this is the first time the company has announced a series of 19 changes that will be implemented over the coming months.

Be sure to understand the implications of these changes before pitching your next Facebook project.

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Facebook has been building out its Pages product for businesses, brands, and celebrities since last year — and as the site has boomed to well over 300 million people, Pages have become an increasingly important way for any organization to reach users. Sensing opportunity, a number of companies have been starting up or expanding to provide services for Page owners.

Pages, as opposed to personal profiles, are designed for public conversations between fans and celebrities, companies, non-profits or other people and organizations. The companies that develop products for Pages generally tend to provide a customizable suite of services, including engaging applications like polls and quizzes, moderation tools, and analytics. Conceptually, this is an extension of the online marketing products industry that serves web sites, and similar in some ways to the range of products that have also been coming out for microblogging service Twitter.

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Facebook announced today that Toys R Us has become the fastest growing brand on Facebook, growing between 40,000 to 95,000 fans per day over the past week.Toys R Us recently released a new catalog on their Facebook Fan Page, called the “Big Book” and currently has 396,301 fans.

Unsure of the exact reason for the tremendous growth, Facebook “assumes it’s the result of an ad campaign,” juxtaposed with a number of features on the company’s Fan Page stimulating growth of new fans.

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*Coverage of Context Optional-built app for Toys “R” Us

Black Friday tends to bring out the animalistic side of shoppers looking for great bargains. Smart retailers are hip to the craze, which has been somewhat of an internet meme ever since October, and they’re using the web and social media as platforms to generate even more interest.

Toys “R” Us appears to have found the magic formula for not only building buzz but gaining thousands of Facebook  fans by the day. The toy retailer has wisely decided to give their Facebook fans, and Facebook fans only, a full preview of Black Friday discounts, as well as exclusive access to “Mystery Deals.”

Their calculating Facebook maneuver is helping them net hundreds of thousands fans. As they close in on 400,000 fans total, All Facebook is reporting that Toys”R”Us is currently the fastest growing brand on the social network.

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JPMorgan Chase’s retail banking arm is giving away $5 million to charity via a Facebook promotion.

The Chase Community Giving Facebook application encourages Facebook users to choose from more than 500,000 small and local charities to decide which community organizations they want to receive donations from Chase’s corporate philanthropy fund. Chase is running media across Facebook and elsewhere online and in print to promote the initiative, according to a spokesperson for Context Optional, which created the application.

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*Coverage of Chase’s Context Optional-built Facebook charity campaign

Chase announced Monday a partnership with Facebook to power the finance company’s inaugural “Community Giving” campaign, which will allocate a total of $5 million to small, local nonprofits voted on by Facebook members.

The campaign takes the form of–you guessed it–a Facebook Platform application, in which members can choose their favorite of more than 500,000 nonprofits. Naturally, then, they’re encouraged to use the hallowed “social graph” to encourage their friends to do so as well.

The winner gets $1 million in a grand-prize announcement slated for February 1; five runners-up get $100,000 apiece, and then the entire top 100 receives $25,000 apiece. There’s an advisory board consisting of celebrities and Chase execs, as well as Facebook vice president of communications Elliot Schrage.

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*Coverage of Chase’s Context Optional-built Facebook charity campaign

Facebook’s user base now totals over 300 million people. The social media network thus has the potential to reach more people in a single month than likely any other traditional media outlet, including network television, print news and radio.

With this in mind, Facebook has teamed up with JP Morgan Chase to distribute more than $5 million across its network of nonprofit organizations. Based on the votes of Facebook users, the partnership will donate $1 million to the winning nonprofit, $100,000 each to the five runners up, and $25,000 each to the next 100 finalists. That may seem like everyone gets a piece of the pie, but all of Facebook’s registered charities, totaling more than 500,000, are eligible to win.

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