Maruti Suzuki Leads India's Social Media Brand Equity Ranking

Ranking number one in the NM Incite's Social Media Brand Equity Ranking (SMBER) for Q2 of 2012, Maruti Suzuki has trumped last quarter’s leader Samsung Mobile.

The list, mostly dominated by Telecom and Automobile sector also the new entrants from sports, FMCG and food brands.

Research Methodology

NM Incite, which is a joint venture between Nielsen & McKinsey Company, conducted a detailed analysis of every brand's social media presence over the span of one year from 1st April 2011 to 31st March 2012. Analyzing the engagement, sentiment and frequency of interaction on the publicly available platforms of these brands such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogs etc, along with human scoring, this report aims to be more accurate and relevant.

Results

Last quarter's leader Samsung Mobile has slipped to 2nd positing owing to the high interaction Maruti Suzuki has generated on its social media platforms as well as other properties such as forums and auto-blogs. Other Automotive brands such as Mahindra & Mahindra (8th) and Ford India (10th) have dropped in their rankings.

The rankings are heavily dominated by Telecom brands, total 9 brands are present in the top 20. Lead by Samsung Mobile, the other telecom brands in the list are Nokia (5th), Tata Docomo (6th) , Idea (14th) , Airtel (17th) and Blackberry (11th). Even though it's popularity is dwindling rapidly, RIM has managed to create buzz with its new brand of phones and apps.

On noteworthy observation has been that mobile operators who address customer complaints on the social media platforms manage to generate positive sentiment towards their brand.

One of the most notable additions in the rankings is the entry of sports brands. There are three of them and all are related to IPL. They are: IPL (4th), Mumbai Indians (7th) and Kolkata Knight Riders (16th).

The list is rounded off by Food brands such Cafe Coffee Day (5th), Nescafe (13th), Cadbury Bournville (18th) and Cadbury Celebrations (19th) along with the only FMCG brand, Axe Deodrant (9th).

A Look at the Social Media Activities of the Top 5 Brands

Let's take a look how the top 5 brands are performing on various social media platfroms:

Maruti Suzuki

Each car has its own profile on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and even Flickr and there are millions of fans across all these platforms. While the Facebook pages are primarily image based, the YouTube channels of some of the cars are really impressive. No doubt that it is on top of the rankings.

Samsung Mobile India

Great use of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. While the Facebook page is abuzz with conversations and regular contests, their Twitter account interacts regularly with its audience. And the 130+ videos it has uploaded on YouTube have garnered almost 3 million views.

Nokia India

A Facebook page with 3.6 million members, YouTube channel with 8.4k subscribers and 5.5 million views and an buzzing Twitter community of 30k, it's no doubt that Nokia found itself in the top 3. And by integrating it's offline events such Apptasting with its online platforms, it's creating an even greater buzz.

DLF India Premier League

The darling of TV media, it sees massive online traction during the IPL season (April-May). While it does go into a lull between two IPL seasons, the buzz it generates during the peak season is simply astounding. Also, with live telecast of IPL matches via YouTube, DLF IPL is truly social now.

Cafe Coffee Day

Its ~2.8 million strong Facebook Page is what drives its social media interaction. It is a great place for fans to interact and they publish some really great content over there. While it is excellently conversational on Twitter, it is sad to see that it is not much active on YouTube.

Featured image: FreeDigitalPhotos