Musings on the State of the Art

These days, many companies are attempting to get involved in Social Media outlets (TwitFaceSpace, as one of my customers refers to it).

The issue with getting involved in the “social” space (blogs, wiki’s social networks) is the commitment to keeping it up. Many of us as individuals have started blogs, but realized quickly that the ability to keep it going requires tremendous commitment, with little (or no) discernible ROI for a long time.

However is that true for corporations as well? Is there a direct connection between being engaged in the Social Media space, and your bottom line? Seems intuitive that if you do it right (that’s the catch), and your users are engaging with you in these media, then they will also engage with your products, or at least feel an increased affinity to you and your products, that might not have been there before.

The EngagementDb intends on putting that question to rest. The EngagementDb attempts to create a co-relation between user interaction and engagement in social spaces, and the companies bottom line.

It studied several distinct channels in an attempt to determine the extent of user engagement, and interaction. It then proceeded to score each of the 100 most valuable brands as identified by the 2008 BusinessWeek/Interbrand Best Global Brands ranking.

Top 100 Brands (alright, only some of them!)

The top 10 ENGAGEMENTdb brands with their scores are:

1. Starbucks (127)
2. Dell (123)
3. eBay (115)
4. Google (105)
5. Microsoft (103)
6. Thomson Reuters (101)
7. Nike (100)
8. Amazon (88)
9. SAP (86)
10. Tie – Yahoo!/Intel (85)

The EngagementDb classifies organizations into 4 categories based on how, and where they choose to interact with their users.

• Mavens – brands that have made social media a core part of their go-to-market strategies and are very active in many channels; usually driven by dedicated teams assisted by company-wide awareness and participation.
• Butterflies — brands that recognize the need to be in many channels but have only met with real success in a subset of their activities; these companies are usually spread a bit too thin.
• Selectives – brands that focus on just a few channels and excel in those; these efforts are usually initiated by an internal evangelist.
• Wallflowers — brands present in only a few channels and very lightly in those; these brands are sitting on the sidelines and are wary of the risks. They are still trying to figure out the best next steps and investments in social media.

Now, you want to put it to the test don’t you? Well you can – right away. You can even attempt to rank your brand and see where you fit into that ranking. Head on over to the EngagementDb.

P.S. : As an interesting bit of insight – the EngagementDb – a piece of media about social spaces is currently drawing most of its traffic from Arrington (TechCrunch) and Twitter. I have a thought rattling about in my head about the graph of traffic sources for new content. Will try to write a post regarding that later tonight.