Starbucks and Dell, the Brands Engaged in Social Media the Most

A lot of brands are getting their feet wet, starting to use social media for campaigns and getting in touch with their customers, some more bold than others. A new study from enterprise wiki provider Wetpaint partnering with Altimeter Group set out to find what are the most popular brands on the Internet throughout social media channels. It found that Starbucks is the most engaged brand in social media, followed closely by Dell. What's more, the brands that are the most visible in social media are also doing better financially.

“While much has been written questioning the value of social media, this landmark study has found that the most valuable brands in the world are experiencing a direct correlation between top financial performance and deep social media engagement. The relationship is apparent and significant: socially engaged companies are in fact more financially successful.,” Ben Elowitz, Wetpaint CEO, and Charlene Li, Altimeter Group partner, concluded in the study [PDF].

The study looked at how involved the top 100 brands are in more than ten social media environments, including Facebook, Twitter, blogs and wikis. Starbucks managed to get the first place with a score of 127 points followed by Dell with 123 points. It's interesting to see that Internet companies have been actually overtaken by the two brands, with eBay only managing the third place with 115 points. Google followed with 105 points and then Microsoft with 103.

The rest of the top ten is made up of media giant Thomson Reuters with 101 points, the sports shoe maker Nike with 100 points, Amazon with 88, software maker SAP with 86 and finally a tie between Yahoo and Intel, both with 85 points.

The brands were divided into four categories where the most engaged companies, with presence in seven or more social media channels and key marketing and advertising campaigns in those channels, were called “mavens” while the least engaged “wallflowers.”

Interestingly, there was a correlation, though maybe not a direct cause-and-effect relationship, between social media engagement and financial success, with companies in the “mavens” category having seen revenue growth of 18 percent on average in the past 12 months while those in the “wallflowers” category having seen revenue declining 6 percent.