The Top Ten Brands on Facebook

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Starbucks is the most popular brand on Facebook when ranked by the number of people who ‘Like’ a brand (’Fans’ as they used to be called). Over 7.5 million people like the coffee chain on Facebook, almost 2 million more than like the second most popular brand, Coca-Cola.

This data comes from Famecount which ranks brands (and people) based on the number of people who follow, like or friend them in social networks. It shows that food and drink brands are in each of the top five places, with fashion brands making up most of the remaining places in the top ten. Consumers are interested in what these brands are doing, or at least want to flag their interest in the brand or product on their own Facebook profile.

The top ten brands on Facebook (Global)




Rank          Brand                                            Likes



1              Starbucks                                      7,606,987
2              Coca-Cola                                      5,713,367
3              Skittles                                           4,762,979
4              Oreo                                                4,664,879
5              Red Bull                                          4,106,096
6              Windows Live Messenger         4,091,247
7              Victoria’s Secret                          3,644,199
8             adidas Originals                           2,949,001
9              ZARA                                               2,758,392
10            Victoria’s Secret PINK               2,513,306

*Note: figures updated where relevant to be correct as of June 10 2010

Do the number of Facebook Likes matter?

Data like this is great for understanding user behaviour in Facebook. Showing us for which brands, and for which type of brands, users are more likely to click to say that they ‘Like’ it. However, for the brand, does the number of people who like you on Facebook matter? Not always.

The number of people who like you on Facebook is not the most important measure on Facebook. A more powerful measure is the number who engage with the brand. Liking a brand is an easy step and people do it for many reasons. At one end of the engagement spectrum because they want to hear from and exchange ideas with the brand. At the other end of the spectrum because they just want this ‘Like’ recorded as a badge on their Facebook profile. They may have no intention (or indeed desire) to engage at all with the brand.

And it is this engagement number that is of more use for brands. They want people who talk to them, like their posts and images, share their content and are active advocates of the brand. This means more than just ‘Liking’ the brand but doing something with it and engaging more deeply with it in Facebook. For any brand it is typically better for it to have 1 million fans, of which 5% engage with you on a regular basis, than to have 2 million fans with less than 1% engaging.

This number also shows the value of your presence in social media. It can be relatively easy for brands to build large numbers of ‘Likes’. It is less easy to get them to actually do something and to engage with you. But it is when they do that brands get real value.

So Facebook ‘Likes’ are important for brands, but actual engagement is even more important.

Image by mortimer? via Flickr

Original Post: http://www.freshnetworks.com/blog/2010/06/the-top-ten-brands-on-facebook/