Yes, it’s another startup that wants to help businesses manage their presence on Facebook. Social Candy CEO Darin Kotalik admits that the’res no shortage of competition, but he’s hoping to differentiate his company by combining ease-of-use and breadth of features.

The company just announced that it’s expanding those features with by allowing businesses to offer coupons through their Social Candy-created Facebook pages. That’s an obvious way for Social Candy customers to drive traffic from Facebook into their stores — and to track exactly how effective those efforts are. Coupons can be set up in 15 minutes or less, and can automatically updated based on daily specials, Kotalik says.

Social Candy has already been testing the coupon feature, with Gigi’s Cupcakes, and the chain says it led to 83 downloaded coupons, 150 newsletter sign ups, and 244 new Facebook Likes in the first few weeks.

In addition to Gigi’s, Social Candy has other noteworthy customers, especially in the food and wine industry, including Bandit, Sutter Home, and Lambert Bridge wineries (Social Candy is headquartered in California’s wine country, specifically Healdsburg, so it probably has a hometown advantage.) It’s trying to expand into new industries, with customers like the Recording Academy, which gives out the Grammy Awards.

Coupons will be included as a basic feature in Social Candy’s social marketing platform, which it calls the Sweet Shoppe.

By ANTHONY HA - TechCrunch on February 08, 2012