Facebook debuted its Preferred Marketing Developer (PMD) program, designed to help brands find providers of marketing software and services, vetted by the social network, that can help them develop and deploy Facebook marketing campaigns, PMD Manager John Yi wrote on the company’s developer blog.
PMD combines the Preferred Developer Consultant program (PDC) and Facebook’s Marketing API program (MAP) to “bring developers to the right clients and make it possible for any brand or company to find consultants who can work with them to build comprehensive Facebook campaigns,” Yi wrote. Facebook selected 141 companies from 20 countries to become part of this class of PMD. There are more than 230 PMDs worldwide.
Compass Labs, a social marketing intelligence shop based in San Jose, Calif., was one of the companies chosen to become a PMD. Compass Labs CEO Dilip Venkatachari said his company wanted to be a part of the PMD program because “it helps marketers see a set of vendors who can help you with various aspects of your marketing and advertisement needs.”
Although PMDs were chosen through an application process, Compass Labs was chosen because it has had a long-standing working relationship with Facebook during the past two years, Venkatachari said. “We’ve actually been closely partnering with Facebook since they started rolling out their APIs, particularly their ad API.”
Facebook marketing is particularly important, Venkatachari said, because of the bi-directional nature of social networks. “It’s the only place where customers interact back with brands in a very vibrant manner,” he said.
These dual interactions provide Facebook with a rich pool of data and customer behavior information to explore, Venkatachari said. Astute use of that data can help businesses target audiences, making better use of their marketing dollars.
To navigate the various PMDs, Facebook has an online directory, intended to help markets find the right developers to work with. It organizes developers based on whether they offer services, products or both as well as whether those developers services small businesses, mid-market businesses, or large enterprises.
Facebook also indicates each developer’s focus, whether they create page management tools, ad management tools, apps, analytics or some combination of the four.
Other companies chosen in this class of PMDs include Invoke, Extole, IgnitionOne and the recently-acquired Crowd Factory.
Facebook could not immediately be reached for comment.
