The Top 100 brands in social media

Consumer sentiment

Share of voice is a useful device for measuring whether a brand is in the Online conversation. It is a benchmark that starts the process of Mapping a brand’s Buzz in Social media. The next steps would be to discover how these conversations are linked, identify the advocates and detractors and then evaluate the influence of each brand mention. Using this methodology, it becomes clear which blogs, wikis, forums and Networks a brand must monitor and engage with, to enhance the advocacy.

Understanding the sentiment of brand conversations is crucial. Frequency and popularity in the conversation is meaningless without a clear picture of whether the discussion is positive or negative. A high share of voice only creates brand equity when the chatter is beneficial.

Social media is, at its heart, a connected medium: connections between blogs, connections between networks and connections with Friends. These connections create highly linked social media properties that are loved by the Search Engines. This results in positive and negative comments appearing in search engines on a brand’s key phrases. And as a window on your brand, no company wants negative comments as part of its profile in Google.

The sheer volume of social media Content makes measuring total sentiment across 100 brands extremely difficult. It requires a detailed examination of every Post and every conversation. It is best conducted using technologies and proven methodologies such as those supplied by Market Sentinel  and Onalytica . These companies provide a true picture of sentiment and detailed stakeholder analysis. This report does not set out to review sentiment across all social media.

However, one useful indicator is the overall sentiment of Groups set-up by consumers on social network sites such as Facebook and MySpace. Social networks allow users to list other users as “friends,” thereby linking pages to one another and publicly demonstrating connections. These Links between people constitute the “network” part of the social network, and enable sharing with friends, including photographs, messages and comments on brands.

Brand-focused social network groups tend to be instigated by consumers on an open basis, whereby others can freely join and participate. Popular groups can quickly swell in numbers and influence large numbers of consumers online. 

Groups, by their nature, tend to clearly indicate whether they are for or against a brand and this offers an insight into consumer tastes and views.

Recent statistics from Microsoft digital advertising solutions show:

• 73% of UK social networkers have visited the personal space of a brand
• 16% have had a dialogue or sent a message to a brand
• 70% are prepared to include sponsored content on their personal page, whilst 10% have already branded their space
• 68% will visit a website related to what they have seen or read on a friend's site  

immediate future has assessed groups set-up on three of the most popular social network sites: Flickr, Facebook and MySpace. Groups that mention the top 100 brands were examined and brand sentiment (positive, negative or neutral in tone) recorded. 

The following chart highlights the top 25 brands in terms of social media share of voice and the sentiment towards them across these social network groups. 

Disney performs exceptionally well, inspiring the largest number of social network groups - the large majority of which are positive in tone. Nintendo’s recent success with the Wii has had a significant impact, with a large number of positive consumer groups emerging in recent months.

The automotive sector, as a whole, fares well too, with Toyota, BMW and Honda motivating consumers to create a large number of appreciation groups. 

Of the top 25 Microsoft suffers from the most negative sentiment, with over a third of the Microsoft groups created to criticise the brand. A large majority of comments in the groups stem from consumer frustrations from Microsoft products or unfavourable comparison to its competitors. 

Interestingly, Google has almost no negative groups set-up in its name. Instead, a plethora of groups of positive fan sites or discussions on how best to use Google services can be found. 

LG, Kraft, Amazon and Reuters, who performed well across all social media, have done poorly in the selected social networks. These brands are currently not inspiring the creation of groups and therefore conversations are minimal.