Michael T's Body of Knowledge

November 26, 2009 at 12:30 pm (social media)

A business acquaintance posted an interesting blog post about a study that finds that social media engaged companies have a better return on investment.

 The top companies are as follows.

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)

As an ex-program manager of an ecommerce company I had a bit of a problem with the conclusion of this study. First off, most of the companies in the top 10 are internet based companies, so saying they engage in social media is like saying flowers benefit from the sun. And isn’t Yahoo, of as late, the poster child of what not to do in the internet?

Second, there is a more interesting list in the data than the top ten. Once you account for companies (7 out of the top 10) that are basically internet/software/or computer hardware companies that either relies heavily on the internet as a core part of their business model or the internet has had a major impact on their business model you have a truly unique list where you could extract some good lessons on if and how social media has helped these offline companies.

The excluded companies are EBay, Dell, Google, Microsoft (Bing-search), Amazon, Sap, Yahoo and Intel.

My new list would read as follows. I go to twelve for the exact reason I stated above. (Complete original list.)

1. Starbucks
2. Reuters
3. Nike
4. BlackBerry(?) (G3 Internet anywhere)
5. Accenture (?) (Software Consulting)
6. Pepsi (as long as it’s Pepsi the carbonated soft drink and not PepsiCo the snack conglomerate). But still their success is on Sports partnerships across the global, and probably not social media.
7. MTV
8. Disney (as long as it’s Disney the brand and not Disney the largest media and entertainment conglomerate in the world)
9. Adidas
10. Toyota
11. Ferrari (doubt they have a Social Media aspect to their marketing plan)
12. H&M

My conclusion, is it social media that has kept these companies thriving, or is it another customer centric ideology?

 But this gives me a launching point to research my Social Media for the fortune 500 crowd. Read my blog post about why I don’t think social media is right for the small business.

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