Vitrue Social Media Index 2009: Who were the top 100 most social brands on the web?

Posted by: Krishna De | Posted on: January 5th, 2010 | 7 Comments | Posted in: Marketing online, Measurement, Research, Social media, word of mouth marketing

Just released is the Vitrue 100 – a listing of the most talked about brands on the social web in 2009. I have posted the top 20 below but if you want to access the full 100 you will find it HERE.

1. iPhone
2. Disney
3. CNN
4. MTV
5. NBA
6. iTunes
7. Wii
8. Apple
9. Xbox
10. Nike
11. Starbucks
12. NFL
13. PlayStation
14. Adidas
15. BlackBerry
16. Sony
17. Mercedes
18. Microsoft
19. Samsung
20. BMW

Brands represented in the Vitrue 100 are across many sectors from auto to electronics, from consumer goods to food and retail – a few interesting points to note from the top 100.

• Game consoles are higly represented in the top 25 brands in the list including the Wii #7, Xbox#9, PlayStation #13, Nintendo #21
• Luxury brands on the list include Gucci #27, Louis Vuitton #81, Prada #88 and Burberry #94
• Media brands account for 8% of the list – CNN #3, MTV #4, ESPN #23, CBS #32, ABC #33, Turner #36, Fox News #56, NBC #68 – perhaps recognising the intersection of traditional and new media
• Cosmetic brands other than Avon at #97 and Jet Blue was the only airline to make this year’s list – an opportunity for both of those sectors
• Restaurants on the list include Subway #50, McDonald’s #62 and KFC #66
• As 2009 was a challenging year for the automotive they are well represented in the Vitue top 100 list – Mercedes #17, BMW #20, Ford #24, Honda #25, Ferrari #27, Toyota #38, Audi #45, Kia #53, Porsche #55, Jeep #56, Dodge #57, Suzuki#61, Volkswagen #67, Chevrolet #80, GM #85.

I’m not suggesting that this is an absolute listing – but it is an interesting comparison. What I don’t see broken out in the Vitrue 100 is the actual engagement in the social web by these brands or how well they do so (we know for example that Apple is for from being a social brand itself). This index is more of a word of mouse measurement of the social web. in other words how many people are talking about your brand.

Just for fun I thought I would check out the relative Vitrue social media index of Guinness and the iPhone – here are the results as at 5 January 2010. Given that Guinness is one of the best known brands in the world and one of Ireland’s most iconic brands it does give a sense of scale about how much people talk about the iPhone online.

Just looking at my own activity, I know that I have spoken more about the iPhone than Guinness. I’ve talked about the iPhone in Twitter, blogs and podcasts in 2009 even though I have only had an iPhone for a matter of weeks – listen to my recent podcasts about iPhone applications HERE. While I have created videos, podcasts and blogs about Guinness, 2009 was the 250th anniversary of Guinness, and I used to be on the board of the company I know I have spoken about Guinness less online than the iPhone.

My take away? It get’s back to how do you make sure that your brand, no matter how well known and well established, is worth talking about and you provide people with something worth talking about.

What do you think?

ABOUT THE VITRUE SOCIAL MEDIA INDEX

Vitrue is a social media technology company in the US.

You can read about the methodology of the Vitrue social media index HERE.

Each day, Vitrue analyses the online conversations on a variety of social networks, blogs, status updates (micro-blogs), photo and video sharing sites.

The Vitrue Social Media Index (SMI) calculates scores about the brand’s social conversations. They apply a series of algorithms to reflect the frequency of usage, the size of the social media environment, and the magnitude of the conversation. The result is a single numeric score for each brand: the Vitrue Social Media Index (SMI).Vitrue SMI by reviewing popular social media sites. We update the Vitrue SMI once daily.