The index tracks daily mentions of some 2,000 prominent brands within the Web’s main social media venues: Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Flickr, the general blogosphere, YouTube and some of the less prominent photo- and video-sharing Internet sites.
The algorithm used by Vitrue captures only mentions of a phrase; it doesn’t distinguish between positive and negative comments.
“What we’re measuring here is the share of voice that a brand has in social media at a given time,” says Reggie Bradford, Vitrue CEO. “[The algorithm doesn’t measure sentiment, so we don’t capture ‘iPhone sucks’ versus ‘iPhone rules.'” Vitrue also doesn’t track the audio in YouTube clips; as with Flickr photos, those count as brand mentions only if the uploader included one of the tracked brand names in the file tag.
While the top of the list is heavily dominated by tech and entertainment brands, as last year’s version was, some brands showed discernible upward or downward movement. For example, last year Nike was ranked 39th in the index; this year it found its way to the number 10 spot.
Other strong gainers on the 2009 ranking included Adidas (number 14 this year, up from 85 in 2008), Nissan (37 this year, 60 last year), Victoria’s Secret (moving from 66 to 41 this year) and Major League Baseball, which shot from #79 in 2008 to 29 in 2009.
Other notes from the 2009 Vitrue Social media Index:
Media brands represent 8% of this year’s list, from CNN at the third position to NBC at #68—perhaps signaling the extent to which their content is finding its way into social media through sharing.
Sports remain as prominent in the ranking as they were this year: Not only do the NBA and MLB make the top 100 spots, but they’re joined by the national Football League (#12), NASCAR (#43) and the National Hockey League (#46).
Restaurants also figure importantly in the 2009 ranking—although it’s interesting that between the powerhouses of McDonald’s (#62) and KFC (#66), passionate fans were able to insert Krystal’s, a mostly Southern chain with only 385 units.
Even in an austere spending year, luxury brands still managed to earn themselves some buzz in social media, from Gucci (#27) to Louis Vuitton (81), Prada (88) and Burberry (94).
The 2009 list also indexes a balanced mix of consumer packaged goods, auto, electronics and retail brands, notes Bradford. For the most part, the CPG entrants are soft drink brands (Coca-Cola at 31, red Bull at 47 and Pepsi at 73), but some surprising other supermarket food brands earned slots among the social media elite: Skittles (#65), and Pringles (86). Perhaps most surprisingly of all, hazelnut spread Nutella entered the 2009 SMI Top 100 at 42.
Bradford noted that the iPhone was able to stay at the top of this year’s index despite lacking either a Facebook page or Twitter account.
Interestingly, the Vitrue social media Index does not track some prominent brands such as Google and Facebook on the assumption that they are primarily part of the social infrastructure rather than the conversation in those channels.
That may have to be revised next year, Bradford conceded, if Google’s new Nexus One smartphone starts to pick up notable buzz within social media.
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