Wildfire makes available a free tool that lets you compare the performance trends of up to three brands on Facebook and Twitter. Start by entering their Facebook page names and/or Twitter IDs on the Wildfire home page:

Wildfire entry dashboard

Clicking “Compare” takes you to a dashboard showing trend lines of numbers of fans (for Facebook) or followers (for Twitter) over the course of a year. You can zoom in to the past 3 months, 1 month, or week.

Wildfire Social Graph

Wherever possible, Wildfire pulls in the data from the associated Facebook and Twitter accounts of the brands you specify, even if you only enter just Facebook or just Twitter.

Obviously, number of fans and followers is only one of many social media metrics to which a brand should be paying attention. While minimalist, Wildfire is useful for a “quick and dirty” look at how your brand is doing against its competition in the two most widely-used social media outlets.