Top Brands and Social Media

In July a report was published by Wetpint and Altimeter where social media strategies (and sometimes lack of strategy) for the top leading world-wide brands were analyzed and QUANTIFIED (!!) against one another. It's a fairly concise read, pretty direct and compelling with a very predictable ending. Luckily for the publishers they're not in the novel business so, although the ending was obvious from the cover sheet, the devil (and fun) is in the details. Spoiler alert! A sound social media strategy and execution is directly proportional to revenue growth or profit in some sectors. WOW! Now you know. Go home. Nothing to read here.

Brand like Starbucks (the kings of social media), Toyota, Google and Apple were categorized into one of four categories based on their social media trends:

1. Mavens- involved in 7 or more channels and engage very often and effectively.
2. Butterflies- involved in 7 or more channel but engage much less often and effectively
3. Selectives- involved in less than seven channels and engage effectively and often
4. Wallflowers- like Jacob Dylan, they're a flash in the pan (sorry J. I know you'll come back with a vengance). Involved in less than 7 channels and not effective or often engaged

Which do you think you are? Where do you think you should be? I know where I think LimbGear is today and where we'll be in 6 months. What I'm not sure about is the effectiveness of a Maven strategy for a company building a niche market.

I won't go into too much detail about the report (and probably shouldn't!) but go to www.engagementdb.com to get a copy. I'm no Oprah but I recommend!