We are excited to release our second annual ranking of the most social brands, The Vitrue 100. 2009 certainly marked the tipping point for social media with Facebook crossing 350 million month active users worldwide (100 million US users) according to “Inside Facebook”, December 2009.

Adoption of social media by marketers has also followed suit,  as eMarketer cites the percentage of the Fortune 500 not using social media has dropped dramatically - from 43% now to only 9%.

Forrester is also stating that social media marketing is projected to grow at an annual rate of 34%, faster than any other form of online marketing (US Interactive Marketing Spend 2009 to 2014 Report issued Summer 2009).

So what does all this mean as we head into 2010?  Marketers are adding social as a foundation into the marketing mix and need the infrastructure to manage their increasingly robust presences. TV spots are now tagged out with Facebook URLs instead of corporate web sites and point-of-sale call to actions now direct you to fan them on Facebook or follow them on Twitter.

Marketers get that social works. So with this in mind we established The Vitrue 100 to help bring credibility and clarity to this emerging space. The Vitrue 100 helps provide the industry with overall trends. We issue the list to highlight the most social brands and help demonstrate the value of social media marketing.

Some thoughts on this year’s list:

• Overall provocative mix of blue chip brands – cross category from CPG to auto to electronics to retail
• iPhone still reigns supreme, second year in a row as the most buzzed about brand on the social web
• Game consoles dominate the top of the list Wii #7, Xbox#9, PlayStation #13, Nintendo #21
• Biggest gainer this year was Adidas, also NBA, Nike, MLB, Nissan, Victoria’s Secret, HP, KFC all made impressive gains, check out The Vitrue 100 from 2008 here
• Luxury brands on the list this year with good representation – Gucci #27, Louis Vuitton #81, Prada #88 and Burberry #94
• Media brands make up 8% of list – CNN #3, MTV #4, ESPN #23, CBS #32, ABC #33, Turner #36, Fox News #56, NBC #68 – perhaps illustrating our socialization of their content
• Cosmetic brands under represented missing outside of Avon at #97 as well as travel brands as jet Blue was the only airline to make this year’s list
• Sport brands make sense to be so prominent too as people are very passionate NBA #5, NFL #12, MLB #29, NASCAR #43, NHL #46
• Restaurants also make sense – people talk about where they want to eat – Subway #50, McDonald’s #62, Krystal #63, KFC #66
• Automotive vertical well represented – 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

Take a look and let us know what you think.

Methodology
The Vitrue 100 is the result of Vitrue’s daily analysis of over 2,000 popular brands on the social web.

On July 1, 2009, we refined the SMI’s algorithm in our continual efforts to reflect the the social web.  See more details here> http://vitrue.com/smi/

The Vitrue SMI report is an easy to understand measurement of a brand’s online conversations. Based on our patent-pending technology, index scores are comprised of various online conversations from status updates to multi-dimensional video sites. The Vitrue SMI score provides a snapshot in time to help make sense of the overwhelming amount of measurable data.

We derive the Vitrue SMI by reviewing popular social media sites. We update the Vitrue SMI once daily. Our sample set represents different dimensions of social interactivity:

• Social Networking - general sharing
• Video Sharing - high engagement of viewing time and authenticity of dimension
• Status Updates - aka Micro-Blogs; key influencers who chatter and actively push content
• Photo Sharing - social meta data
• Blogs - general blogsphere, commentary mentions

The index numbers are not intended to be used in absolute terms; rather, they provide a numerical basis to compare the social media prominence of two or more terms. We frequently update the algorithm based on changes in usage patterns, overall traffic and social network results.

The changing world of online conversations results in significant movements up and down for brands. The Vitrue 100 was determined by averaging the SMI scores for each brand across each day in December 2009. To further clarify, “annual” based on grouping of pull done once a year as the first Vitrue 100 was done December 2008 and we wanted to measure year over year. The result is a ranked list of the brands which are most talked about on the social web.

Some powerhouse technology brands were omitted from the list as they provide the backbone of many social networks.  While Google, Facebook and others are top brands, The Vitrue 100 is measuring companies that are using social technology, not those who are the technology.

This entry was posted by Gretchen Miller on Monday, January 4th, 2010 at 9:12 am and is filed under Social Media Measurement, Vitrue. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.