Companies have long had problems putting numbers on social media marketing results. Wetpaint and the Altimeter Group have now released a study looking at how engagement with consumers through social media correlates with financial performance.
The "ENGAGEMENTdb study" shows that companies who measured as having "the greatest breadth and depth of social media engagement" grew revenues by 18% over the last year, while the companies that were the least engaged dropped 6% on average.

"This is the first study of this depth on the top global brands and we think the results provide a good guide for corporations and brand marketers in every industry," says Charlene Li, Founder, Altimeter Group. "The success stories we have uncovered provide a blueprint for companies making decisions about how to best apply their marketing and consumer relations resources."

Channels taken into consideration for the study were:

- Blogs
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Wikis
- Discussion Forums

Brands looked at were the 100 most valuable ones as identified by the 2008 BusinessWeek/Interbrand Best Global Brands ranking. In case you were wondering what the top ten brands are according to the ENGAGEMENTdb study, they are as follows:

1. Starbucks
2. Dell
3. eBay
4. Google
5. Microsoft
6. Thomson Reuters
7. Nike
8. Amazon
9. SAP
10. Yahoo!/Intel (Tie)

So what are these brands doing right?

According to Wetpaint and the Altimeter Group, the companies that scored well have dedicated teams (of varying sizes) who are active in the social media channels they utilize. Basically, it shows that it pays (literally) to have a team working full time on engaging with customers via social media. Even if that team consists of one person, it means they will not be distracted by other tasks and can give the social channel the attention required for it to make a significant impact.

As the social web continues to grow (meaning more people joining social networks, more people blogging, and more sites becoming social), there is a growing number of channels that require said attention.

"The ENGAGEMENTdb study goes a long way towards validating the importance of social media for business," says Ben Elowitz, CEO of Wetpaint. "The closer any company is to its customers, the better, and it's hard to argue with the ability for social media to create such proximity. In this day and age, companies should feel much more comfortable investing in social media -- the correlation to results is so clear."

It is in fact that clarity that many companies have had a hard time seeing in the past. Social media is still in its early stages though really. In the grand scheme of things, it's still a relatively new concept. Keep in mind, that many businesses still do not even have websites, let alone a social media presence.

It is going to take studies like this and concrete data showing the financial benefits for more small businesses to truly get on board and engage. Having dedicated teams is a strategy that will likely become more commonplace as companies realize that half-assing it is just a waste of time.

A couple of other highlights from the study:

- The study found that the most successful teams evangelize social media across the entire organization to pull in a broad range of stakeholders.

- These companies view social media as an indispensable tool to help them achieve results, and their approach is conversational.

Along with the study, the ENGAGEMENTdb site was launched as a tool where companies can measure themselves against the top 100 in terms of the strength of their social media efforts. It's probably not a bad idea to take a look if you're serious about those efforts.

500,000 usernames taken in 15 minutes


Personally, the process went hard for me. I did not register username (i do NOT have facebook account,so i was not granted to register it,damn!)

Ben Parr, Associate Editor for Mashable, was able to find out some early numbers from the usernames launch...

In 3 minutes, there were 200,000 usernames registered. In 15 minutes, over half a million, and it is rising.

Darnn! Talk about a success.

I went digging through Search.Twitter to see if anyone was complaining of the site being down or slow... and I couldn't find one negative tweet about the launch (except for users upset about not getting their desired username).

Most of the tweets about the launch were praising Facebook for dealing with a traffic rush of that magnitude.



So, was you able to get your desired username?

Facebook announced today the company will accept a $200 million investment from Russian investment firm Digital Sky Technologies. A couple hundred million nets Digital Sky just under two percent equity in Facebook at a $10 billion valuation.

Other companies with similar offers in recent weeks were rejected by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, primarily because Zuckerberg did not wish to lose control of the board of directors. Zuckerberg currently holds one seat and one empty one to secure control of the company.

Digital Sky agreed it would not be represented on the Facebook board or hold special observer rights. Half of the investment will be used to facilitate liquidity for current and former employees’ vested shares.

“A number of firms approached us,” said Zuckerberg, “but DST stood out because of the global perspective they bring – backed up by the impressive growth and financial achievements of their internet investments.” The CEO noted 70 percent of Facebook’s 225 million members reside outside the United States.

“Our investment experience in other regions reveals the tremendous value social networking companies create as they redefine how people communicate and interact,” said DST CEO Yuri Milner. “By every important metric – user growth and engagement, technological innovation and financial performance – Facebook is on a similar trajectory, though on a much more global scale. "

Milner has a habit of being profiled about once every ten years, which appears to be the rate at which he garners international attention, and the rate at which international catastrophe hits. His first appearance was in 1990 as the first Soviet student to attend the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Milner credited Gorbachev’s perestroika program for allowing him the opportunity and planned to take American style capitalism back to the USSR.

Milner said he wanted to be “like a bridge” between the US and the USSR’s developing market. Ten years later, in 2000, Milner’s Netbridge was featured in the Financial Times, hoping to generate $100,000 a month for his new company. Fast forward to 2009, and Milner is swinging $200 million no-strings-attached investments at a popular social network run by the new golden child of digital business.

Not bad for the kid from perestroika, eh?

If you’re cynical enough, you might have notice every time Milner shows up in the press, catastrophic events seem to happen simultaneously: the USSR collapsed in 1991; the Dotcom Bubble burst in 2000; and now a Facebook investor in the age of the US financial system collapse. Wonder what systemic panic Milner accompany in 2020?