Top 9 Brands with the Largest Social Media Market Share

If you’re a brand manager, one goal of your job is to ensure that you have an active Social Media presence.

Some companies do it well.  Some companies do it poorly.  Some companies are non-existent in the social space.   Those that do it well don’t necessarily need any more advice other than to keep doing what’s working.  Those that do it poorly need all the help that they can get.  And those that aren’t participating at all – well, maybe that’s okay for them. It depends on the industry and their products, we suppose.

Going Social:
Excite Customers, Generate Buzz, and Energize Your Brand
with the Power of Social Media

But if you have a consumer-facing product or business, then you better not fall into that last category.  Being a non-participant in social media could end up hurting you more than not – especially if you have no way of knowing what people are saying about you or your products.

Who knows? Maybe everyone online loves your stuff.  Wouldn’t that be helpful to know?  Ditto if they hated what you were producing.  Knowing that would allow you to take action.  Either way, not being involved in the conversation can be harmful.

But let’s talk about the first group – those companies that really get social media and are on top of their game.  A RECENT STUDY BY PQ MEDIA looked at the TOP 100 BRANDS IN SOCIAL MEDIA.

Here’s some of what they found:

• While women are more active on social media then men, it’s men that initiate more conversations about brands.
• The three highest-reaching brand categories, in terms of social media, are RESTAURANTS, BEVERAGES, and CONSUMER TECHNOLOGY.  Considering that these three items are, themselves, aimed at creating social conversations in person as opposed to just online, this does not surprise Web Watch.
• These three categories alone generated over 70% of the “social media share of voice” in the second half of 2012.  That’s a lot of sharing about what we eat and what we drink.

The TOP 9 BRAND MENTIONS in Social Media were determined to be:

1. Coke
2. Gatorade
3. Apple / Google (tie)
4. Starbucks / Sprite (tie)
5. Burger King / McDonalds (tie)
6. Samsung

So if you’re into social media and marketing, you may want to pop over and read the full report here