• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, December 3, 2009

Verizon has hammered AT&T in a relentless ad campaign, triumphed over its chief rival in a recent court challenge, and easily bested the carrier in the latest cell service satisfaction survey from Consumer Reports. Now Verizon is thumping AT&T in another arena: Facebook.

The nation's largest wireless carrier has recently ramped up marketing efforts on the social network as part of broader to promote the launch of the Motorola Droid, Verizon FiOS and its V Cast media service, among other products.

For any brand on Facebook, driving traffic to their brand page and signing up new fans are key steps toward spreading their messages across the network. To that end, Verizon has been gaining ground rapidly since last week, Verizon has added more than 500,000 fans for a total of nearly 760,000. At that rate, it could soon surpass the million mark.

For comparison, the top two brands on Facebook -- Starbucks and Coca-Cola -- have about 5 million and 4 million fans, respectively. The only other corporate brand among the top 30 in Facebook fans is Skittles, with 3.5 million.

On Cyber Monday alone, the wireless giant saw a spike of more than 150,00 fans, according to Inside Facebook. The Facebook-tracking blog attributed the surge to a barrage of Verizon display ads across the social network touting various promotions and featuring a button inviting users to become fans of the company.

One holiday-themed ad encourages people to fan Verizon on Facebook "to get great offers on the latest phones." Another asks users to vote on which songs belong on the "Fan Faves" playlist on its page.

Verizon's Facebook page itself features a promotion for its FiOS triple-play package, offering three services for the price of two for the first six months. There's also an offer promising exclusive Green Day concert footage via its V Cast Live service for "fans only," as well as a section focused on new phones including the Droid, Droid Eris and BlackBerry Storm 2.

"Obviously, no brand can pay for this kind of growth all the time, but coupled with Verizon's constant stream of TV commercials and the start of the shopping season, Verizon is making a strong push to build out its Facebook Page as a major messaging channel," stated Inside Facebook.

Without a similarly aggressive campaign on Facebook, AT&T's brand page, by contrast, boasts a paltry 30,000 fans. Furthermore, its Wall features many user posts hardly complimentary of the company. Some provide links to articles about its losing legal effort to stop Verizon's "There's A Map For That" ads and the Consumer Reports survey that ranked AT&T lowest of the four major carriers.

"I'm not happy with AT&T, but I am extremely happy with the iPhone -- hence I'm stuck with AT&T unless I were to jailbreak the phone," read one comment. A post by Josue Gamez expressed fatigue with the steam of complaints. "everyday this place gets more stupid people bitching and bitching then the walmart where i live by," he wrote.

To its credit, AT&T hasn't tried to purge or hide critical comments on its page. But it also hasn't done nearly as much as Verizon to build out its Facebook presence with content, product information and promotions to drive user interaction. Aside from a not-up-to-date section on iPhone news, it does little to even spotlight its marquee device on Facebook.

AT&T could also use Facebook as a forum to actively address complaints or questions about its service and keep users apprised of its efforts to improve its network. But that looks like another missed opportunity too. Verizon is probably as pleased with AT&T's Facebook page as its own.