Making The Social 100

For decades the business community has followed the rising and falling of the top 500-1,000 U.S. and global brands on the annual list compiled and published by Fortune Magazine.  Well as they say, there is a new sheriff in town - brand marketers take notice.

Recently, the folks at Vitrue compiled the first-ever ranking of the top social brands from 2008.  Using their daily analysis of 2,000 plus popular brands, the list reveals the most talked about brands based on their average share of voice on the social web (including a variety of social networking, blogging, micro-blogging, photo and video-sharing sites).

 

An industry break-down of the rankings reveals the following:

AUTOMOTIVE  # of Social Brands ranked = 20

Top 3 Social Brands: Ford, Honda and Lincoln

CPG / RESTAURANTS  #of Social Brands ranked = 12 brands

Top 3 Social Brands: Starbucks, Coke and Pepsi

ELECTRONICS / COMPUTERS  # of Social Brands ranked = 21 brands

Top 3 Social Brands: iPhone, Apple and Xbox

ENERGY  # of Social Brands ranked = 1

Top Social Brand: BP (British Petroleum)

ENTERTAINMENT / PUBLISHING  #of Social Brands ranked = 17 brands

Top 3 Social Brands: CNN, Disney and MTV

FINANCIAL  # of Social Brands ranked = 1

Top Social Brand: Capital One

RETAIL/ WHOLESALE  # of Social Brands ranked = 17 brands

 Top 3 Social Brands: Target, Best Buy and eBay

SPORTS  # of Social Brands ranked = 4 brands

 Top 3 Social Brands: NBA, NFL and NASCAR

TELECOMMUNICATIONS:  # of Social Brands ranked = 3 brands

Top 3 Social Brands: T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T

TRAVEL / HOSPITALITY  # of Social Brands ranked = 4 brands

Top 3 Social Brands: Disney, Hyatt and JetBlue

While I think the Top 100 Social list is a helpful benchmark for brands to watch, I think additional criteria is needed in order to make it truly reflective as a measure of social success within the industry:

• Share of voice user-generated / brand-generated ratio
• Share of voice positive / negative sentiment ratio
• # of followers/following affinity ratio (Twitter, Facebook, Blogs links)

What others do you think should be added?

In reviewing these 2008 rankings, I became curious at what the drivers might have been for these particular brands and industry categories to make the list.  In the coming weeks, I’ll explore a few theories of my own regarding these rankings along with those of my peers.  Stay tuned.