Social Brands 100 2012 Methodology explained1. Social Brands 100 -
The Methodology in detail
May 2012
© Lawton Communications Group Ltd
2. Purpose
• Social Brands 100 is an annual initiative to identify and acknowledge high
performing social brands
• Social Brands 100 exists to:
• Make a data driven and rigorous contribution to the ‘Social ROI’ debate
• Gain insight into the trends and patterns around social high performers
• Provide benchmarking across diverse companies, and sectors
•This presentation outlines in detail the methodology used to create the Social
Brands 100 ranking
© Lawton Communications Group Ltd
3. Social Brands 100 - key stages
• January to February - nominations are crowd-sourced via the
@socialbrands100 account on Twitter
• February to April - the long-list of nominations are shortlisted down to 100
brands based on a Data Score compiled in conjunction with SB100’s social
media monitoring partner, Brandwatch
• April to May - an expert panel of judges scores each brand providing the
Panel Score
• May - final Social Brands 100 ranking is announced based on the combined
Data Score and Panel Score, which determine Social Brand Score
© Lawton Communications Group Ltd
4. Social Brands 100 - Methodology
• The methodology is based upon three core principles of social brands -
• Win-win relationships
• Active listening
• Appropriate social behaviour
• Adopting these principles consistently creates positive effects in social spaces
• These effects can be measured through a series of ‘observable markers’ of
behaviour and interactions between people (including brands) in social spaces
• The level of interaction indicated by each marker equates to a specific score
• These marker scores are aggregated to create the Data Score
© Lawton Communications Group Ltd
5. Social Brands 100 - Methodology
• The Panel Score is created by an expert panel of judges from the social media and
digital industry
• Each judge is asked to assess each brand across four categories
• Value of the brand’s content to communities in social
• Success in providing consistent and ‘always on’ community engagement
• Prioritising community needs over the brand’s own
• Success in creating a powerful overall community spirit
• The judges are asked to assess each brand’s success in each area
• The scores are aggregated to create each brand’s Panel Score
© Lawton Communications Group Ltd
6. Social Brands 100 - Methodology
• The total points available for the Social Brands Score is 382.5
• The Data Score accounts for 262.5 of those potential points
• The judges score accounts for 120 of those potential points
© Lawton Communications Group Ltd
8. Social Brands 100 - Data Score detail
• The following slides outline:
• The different platforms where social interactions are analysed
• The relative weighting given to each platform in terms of points available
• An overview of the observable markers looked at on each platform
• A detailed description of each marker, and what each one can tell us about a
brand’s social performance
• Exact calculations used to arrive at the points for each ‘observable marker’
© Lawton Communications Group Ltd
9. Social Brands 100 Data Score:
Weightings by platform Twitter
27%
You Tube
Facebook
15%
30%
Brand owned blog Foursquare
6%
4%
Own website
4%
Google+
8%
Brand owned forum
6% © Lawton Communications Group Ltd
10. Social Brands 100 Data Score:
Points by platform Twitter
70 points (27%)
You Tube
Facebook
40 points (15%)
80 points (30%)
Brand owned blog Foursquare
15 points (6%)
10 points (4%)
Own website
10 points (4%)
Google+
22.5 points (8%)
Brand owned forum
15 points (6%) © Lawton Communications Group Ltd
11. Social Brands 100 Data Score:
Observable markers overview All @brand mentions
Retweets
Brand post engagement
Mentions of third party @accounts by @brand
Fan post: Brand post ratio
Timeliness of response
Fan post engagement
Fan posts interacted with by brand
Average views per video
Average comments per video
Blog usage
Comment to post ratio
Tips done
Outpost links
Outpost link visibility
+1s per post
Shares per post
Posts per thread
Comments per post
12. Social Brands 100 Data Score:
Facebook - markers
Brand post engagement
Average number of ‘likes’, ‘comments’ and ‘shares’
generated by each brand post. (normalised for community size)
Intensity of interaction with brand posted content. Provides a measure of
the brand’s success in creating content and behaviour that is valuable in
the eyes of the community.
Fan post: Brand post ratio
Ratio of fan posts to brand posts
Vibrancy of community and brand’s willingness/ability to foster community
participation
Fan post engagement
Average number of ‘likes’, ‘comments’ and ‘shares’
generated by each fan post. (normalised for community size)
Intensity of interaction with fan posted content, providing a measure of the health of
the peer-to-peer spirit in the community
Fan posts interacted with by brand
Percentage of fan posts responded to by brand
administrator/community manager
Quality of this area of active listening, and willingness to undertake genuine
conversation vs. broadcast messages
© Lawton Communications Group Ltd
13. Social Brands 100 Data Score:
Twitter - markers
All @brand mentions
Number of @brand mentions (normalised for number of followers)
Success in creating content and conversations that are shared
through networks
Retweets
Retweets of @brand tweets (normalised for number of followers)
Ability to create content that has so much value in the eyes of the
community that they are willing to share it with their own social graph
Mentions of third party @accounts by @brand
Quality of active listening and willingness to undertake genuine
conversation vs. pushing messages
Timeliness of response
Average time taken when responding to third party @accounts
Having the resource and will to deliver ‘always-on’ community management
© Lawton Communications Group Ltd
14. Social Brands 100 Data Score:
YouTube - markers
Average views per video
Average number of views per video posted by brand
Value of video content in the eyes of the community
Average comments per video
Average number of comments per video posted by brand
Intensity of interaction with video content
© Lawton Communications Group Ltd
15. Social Brands 100 Data Score:
Foursquare - marker
Tips done
Average number of people who completed tips left by the brand
Creation of valuable and appropriate content that prompts interaction
© Lawton Communications Group Ltd
16. Social Brands 100 Data Score:
Google+ - markers
+1s per post
Average +1s per post
Ability to create content that has so much value in the eyes of the
community that they are willing to share it with their own social graph
Shares per post
Average shares per post
Ability to create content that has so much value in the eyes of the
community that they are willing to share it with their own social graph
Comments per post
Average comments per post
Intensity of interaction with brand posted content. Provides a measure
of the brand’s success in creating content, and conversation that is
valuable in the eyes of the community
© Lawton Communications Group Ltd
17. Social Brands 100 Data Score:
Brand owned forum - marker
Posts per thread
Posts per forum thread
Success in creating a vibrant community with high levels of interaction
© Lawton Communications Group Ltd
18. Social Brands 100 Data Score:
Own website - markers
Outpost links
Links to social outposts
Proactive promotion of brand’s wider social footprint
Outpost link visibility
Visibility of links to social outposts
High priority given to social outposts as part of overall
digital brand experience
© Lawton Communications Group Ltd
19. Social Brands 100 Data Score:
Brand owned blog - markers
Blog usage
Brand blog used
Willingness to create long-form content, and engage with community
Comment to post ratio
Success in creating valuable and appropriate content that
prompts interaction
© Lawton Communications Group Ltd
20. Social Brands 100 Data Score:
Data sets and calculations
© Lawton Communications Group Ltd
22. Social Brands 100 - Panel Score detail
• The following slides outline:
• The four statements each judge was asked to agree or disagree with
during the scoring process
• These statements carried an equal score and the judge’s responses
were aggregated to provide the Panel Score
© Lawton Communications Group Ltd
23. Social Brands 100 - Panel Score detail
Question 1
“For the main part, the brand provides value based content in its social spaces,
rather than focusing on pushing traditional marketing ‘messages’.”
Question 2
“The brand provides a consistent presence on its social platforms, demonstrating
an ‘always-on’ approach to community engagement.”
© Lawton Communications Group Ltd
24. Social Brands 100 - Panel Score detail
Question 3
“The brand prioritises the community over its own agenda, valuing and responding
to the community’s contributions, needs and ideas.”
Question 4
“Overall, there is the sense that the brand has established a powerful community
spirit across social spaces – a certain ‘Social Brand Factor’ that’s hard to define,
but undeniably present.”
© Lawton Communications Group Ltd
25. For more information
Julius Duncan
julius.duncan@headstream.com
@juliusduncan
+44 (0)23 80 828 585
© Lawton Communications Group Ltd