Adtech 2012: “Social brand equity is better measure than just fans,” says Farshad Family, Nielsen

In an informative panel session on Day 3 of adtech 2012, being held in New Delhi, Farshad Family, managing director – Nielsen Media India, The Nielsen Company and Facundo Maldonato, global head of social media, Ybrant Digital elaborated on new and apt measurement tools to analyze one’s social media efforts and channelize them accordingly.

Family revealed the findings of their recently launched Social Media Brand Equity Ranking (SMBER) index that defines brands’ social media presence and ranks them accordingly. The ranks are based on various qualitative measures such as sentiment towards brands and presence on various platforms including Facebook, Twitter, blogs and forums as well as quantitative measures like unique users, buzz and people following the brand – all of which have been given equal weightage. The index has been launched by NM Incite, a Nielsen/McKinsey company.
The top 10 ranks were taken by Samsung, Ford, Maruti Suzuki, Nike, flipkart, Mahindra, LG, Volkswagen, V Channel and Sony. “Samsung takes the top position as there is a lot of buzz around its offline advertising that is creating online conversations, its hot products and Android based phones,” said Family.

He further explained that a lot of auto majors rank high on SMBER as people like to talk about their cars, post pictures, write blogs and participate in related forums. Also, there is an aspirational element about the car they want to or hope to buy. Nike was an obvious top ranker as digital is driving most of its marketing budget and the “Bleed Blue” campaign during the World Cup created a lot of buzz. Flipkart has gained owing to people talking about its superior customer service.
“The ranking index helps marketers understand their social brand equity, which is a better measure than just the number of fans,” explained Family.

Maldonato, in his presentation, gave some helpful social tips to marketers: “1. Customize your offering; 2. Segment the message; 3. Pay attention to insights; 4. Monitor your page through tools like ComScore, Nielsen, etc.; 5. Go beyond standard metrics like clicks; 6. Detect opportunities through hashtags, buzz words; 7. Take advantage of Facebook’s Open Graph; and 8. Customize landing pages.