Being a social leader is about more than just racking up millions of page Likes. Many companies have procured huge audiences through savvy advertising and promotions, but fail to leverage all that attention by creating meaningful conversations with their Fans. Engagement - Likes, Comments and other forms of Fan interaction - is just as important as audience size. And then there is Buzz. Who is talking about your brand? Who are your evangelicals? The true measurement of success can't be boiled down to a single metric.
Track Social follows more than 10,000 brands across hundreds of metrics. Our near-real time Overall Facebook Performance Leaderboard generates a composite score for each brand using dozens of metrics, categorized by the Pillars of Social Media: Presence, Audience, Engagement & Buzz.
Here's a look at the top ten brands on Facebook and how they got there:
Whatever its stock price, Facebook is still the uncontested king of social networking sites. So it's no surprise that Facebook's presence on its own site outpaces everyone else. Sporting a huge audience (over 72 million Fans) and strong Buzz scores-how much users are talking about the brand in their own posts or re-posts-Facebook takes the top spot.
With a Facebook audience of over 38 million, the house that Walt built has spun its old-media cultural cred into social media gold. While the average number of Likes for brand-initiated Facebook posts is 571, Disney's nostalgic postings average a stunning 115,792 Likes.
YouTube scores big in two essential categories: Audience and Buzz. With over 62 million Fans, YouTube's footprint is second only to Facebook. What's more, YouTube uses Facebook to spotlight its most popular new videos, generating big Buzz numbers as users share and re-post their favorites.
While Coca-Cola's Engagement scores aren't as high as some other brands, that's partly because of its own success in building such an enormous Facebook following. (The larger your audience, the more Likes and Comments you need to keep your Engagement scores high.) Their 52 million Fans have a lot to say. Out of the more than 10,000 companies followed by Track Social, Coca-Cola has the 5th highest Buzz score.
With high marks in all four categories, MTV remains a cultural force to be reckoned with, especially online. With a steady stream of teen-pop posts, celeb gossip and programming promos, MTV's highly "sharable" posts help boost both its Engagement and Buzz scores.
For the full list of The 10 Most Successful Brands on Facebook, including a caffeine powered battle between Starbucks and Red Bull, click here.