The Top 100 brands in social media

Share of voice for the Top 25 Brands

The table below outlines the 25 most discussed brands across the selected Social media sites.

When comparing social media share of voice rankings to the Interbrand Top 100, there is a noticeable swing in results. Of the top brands in share of voice, only 36% rank in the Interbrand top 25.

Social media uptake is driven by an audience of early adopters. This group are primarily technology enthusiasts with a natural inclination to sharing information and insight. It is therefore perhaps unsurprising that Google, Yahoo!, Apple and Microsoft take the top four spots respectively.

These are then followed closely by Canon, Sony and Dell.

Microsoft, Disney and BMW show the closest correlation with the Interbrand rankings, revealing that these brands’ economic rankings are more closely aligned to consumer awareness in social media. Shell, Starbucks and LG show the greatest difference in rankings.

But it must be remembered that these share of voice rankings only reflect the number of brand mentions and do not indicate whether conversations are positive or negative, or influential.

Brand share of voice in detail

A further breakdown of where in the social media landscape the conversation is taking place offers additional insights.

Brand mentions for both Canon and Samsung are significant in Flickr, reflecting their relevancy to this photo-sharing network. Disney too has a proportionately greater number of Flickr mentions, as people share memories of visits to theme parks.

It is mostly the technology companies that dominate the Social bookmarking sites such as De.licio.us and Magnolia. This indicates the technology bent of this user base. The exception is Amazon, which too is widely bookmarked.

Reuters’ brand mentions in the Blogosphere dominate its results, and the same for the Kraft brand. For the media company this reflects the fact that many bloggers link to Reuters’ news.

Kraft is mentioned in an array of different subjects from food and employee comments through to sponsorships. Interestingly, Kraft Foods has just been awarded the highest score in this year’s Reputation Index, making it the most trusted brand in the US.

Finally, LG makes number 25 in the immediate future rankings for share of voice, whilst at Interbrand it is ranked at ninety-four. LG has been actively engaging with the blogosphere for sometime now.