Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are the most valuable social media brands
In a global study, the brand valuation firm BV4, in collaboration with the Social Media Management Center at HWZ Zurich University of Applied Sciences, compiled the first ranking of the most valuable social media brands.
In line with expectations, the globally renowned social media brands Facebook, YouTube and Twitter lead the rankings, according to a press release. The most valuable brands are dominated by social networks from the USA, which account for the lion's share with a total brand value of USD 82 billion. Unsurprisingly, there are also three social networks from China in the top ten: after Qzone in fourth place, Sina Weibo appears in fifth place and Tencent Weibo in eighth place. These rankings are mainly due to the disproportionately high growth in Internet user numbers in China. The two Facebook copies VKontakte from Russia and Renren from China in eleventh and twelfth place are certainly also among the "exotics", having achieved these ranks thanks to strong user statistics.
The valuation method applied
The competencies of the HWZ and BV4 ideally complemented each other in the development of the evaluation method, as the report continues. Based on the scientific expertise of the HWZ, the research design of the study was developed in a first step. The brand valuation specialists at BV4 then determined the data basis and carried out the monetary calculations. In this approach, the brand value corresponds to the revenue of a social network that can be generated today and in the future solely on the basis of the brand. The brand value depends on the one hand on the revenue of a social network, but on the other hand also on its brand strength. The stronger the brand, the more this revenue is driven by the brand. Key value drivers that were examined for the respective brands include the level of awareness and distribution as well as loyalty (including average visit time per user).
> To the Brand Report (PDF)
