Here’s an interesting study from Immediate Future which attempts to calculate social media rankings for different brands by comparing each brand's "share of voice ranking".

I was intrigued by this study because it further validates that the rise of social media is not only changing the relationship between brand and audience, it is affecting the traditional marketing and PR metrics. As a PR professional, it’s nice to know that social media offers insights and understanding about your audience that has never before been achievable.

Check out this page of the study which shows that seven out of the top ten performing brands are technology companies.

Companies wanting to understand the conversation around their own brand must go further than measure share of voice and sentiment. They must delve deeper and isolate the buzz compared to influence. Influence not only plays an important role as a way of converting buzz to impact, it is also crucial to get a correct impression of the sentiment surrounding a topic or brand…social media conversation is not only about the numbers. Social media in itself has influence.