Social media and Socialbakers: a curious list of brands

It is only recently that this Kat has derived much joy from his LinkedIn account. It indeed occurred to him that  accepting an invitation to be in contact with people you don't know very well can be the best way to ensure that you never hear from them again. He has however had better value from some of the LinkedIn Groups. From one such group -- the Trademarks Group-- where Ali Hijazi (AGIP Libya Manager at Abu Ghazaleh Intellectual Property) alerted him to a neat bit of benchmarking, the Socialbakers table of leading brands, listed by the frequency with which they are indexed on Facebook.

The chart of the top fifty Facebook-indexed brands looks like this:

1.	Coca-Cola	33 477 843	+3.68%
2.	Disney	27 868 060	+3.16%
3.	Starbucks	24 400 728	+2.47%
4.	Oreo	22 730 963	+2.69%
5.	Red Bull	21 916 424	+2.25%
6.	Converse All Star	20 545 916	+2.27%
7.	Converse	19 798 240	+2.95%
8.	Skittles	19 038 735	+2.37%
9.	PlayStation	16 959 069	+2.94%
10.	iTunes	16 456 449	+2.55%
11.	Pringles	15 233 765	+2.17%
12.	Victoria's Secret	14 878 782	+2.42%
13.	Windows Live Messenger	14 155 819	+1.08%
14.	Monster Energy	11 989 970	+2.99%
15.	Ferrero Rocher	11 951 838	+1.45%
16.	Nutella	10 984 001	+1.87%
17.	Xbox	10 956 691	+3.50%
18.	adidas Originals	10 726 533	+2.06%
19.	Dr Pepper	10 363 623	+2.86%
20.	Victoria's Secret Pink	10 212 255	+2.19%
21.	Starburst	9 856 099	+2.22%
22.	ZARA	9 855 916	+1.99%
23.	McDonald's	9 838 920	+4.66%
24.	Disney Pixar	9 721 195	+3.16%
25.	Nike Football	8 709 300	+2.29%
26.	Walmart	8 388 517	+11.61%
27.	Subway	7 993 973	+1.77%
28.	H&M	7 937 392	+2.29%
29.	Reese's	7 922 763	+3.02%
30.	BlackBerry	7 825 879	+5.02%
31.	Burberry	7 515 846	+7.46%
32.	Starbucks Frappuccino	7 410 535	+3.00%
33.	Taco Bell	7 390 080	+2.24%
34.	Levi's	6 817 581	+10.89%
35.	Lacoste	6 304 816	+2.20%
36.	BMW	6 301 022	+2.86%
37.	Mountain Dew	5 902 974	+2.71%
38.	DC Shoes	5 789 384	+2.55%
39.	Kohl's	5 597 224	+8.93%
40.	Puma	5 483 771	+1.61%
41.	Sony Ericsson	5 463 080	+3.26%
42.	Pepsi	5 337 576	+11.03%
43.	Target	5 318 242	+5.22%
44.	5 Gum	5 205 383	+2.70%
45.	Gucci	5 164 814	+2.88%
46.	Buffalo Wild Wings	5 039 117	+1.40%
47.	Forever 21	5 010 231	+2.55%
48.	Ferrari	4 924 449	+2.69%
49.	Nike	4 874 133	+3.27%
50.	adidas Football	4 759 128	+3.74%

The list is quite different from the leaders that feature in the Interbrand Top 100 brands list in several respects.  First, notes the IPKat, no fewer than six brands (Disney, Starbucks, Nike, Victoria's Secret, adidas and Converse) have two separate entries. Secondly, the infotech heavies are definitely out: there's no room for brands like Google, IBM, Intel, Apple, Microsoft, Nokia, Cisco, Samsung, Oracle and SAP. Astonishingly, Nutella is way up there with the best of them, while it doesn't rank on the Interbrand scale at all.  "Why be astonished about all this?" Merpel wants to know: "Surely the Socialbakers tells us much more about Facebook users than about the brands themselves -- and much more about the United States than the rest of the world, given that Facebook use seems far more pervasive there".