Using the Track Social searchable Facebook Tab Directory to pick up Mother’s Day campaign activity, we then used the Campaign Module to analyze the results.

So after sifting the data, here’s a sampling of this year’s most notable Mother’s Day Facebook Campaigns:

Redbox: Mother’s Day is For Everyone

The Stats:
Rate of fan growth increased by 383% (over baseline)
37% incremental increase in Buzz (over baseline)

Well done, Redbox for turning a holiday for moms into an excuse to engage just about everyone. Their simple concept seems to have worked well: users were invited to send an e-card to their Facebook Friends who then went to the Redbox Facebook page and had to LIKE Redbox in order to redeem a coupon code for a free movie rental (to be used exclusively on Mother’s Day).

Redbox experienced a big boost in Audience numbers during the course of the campaign, seeing increases of new Fans per day at a 383% higher rate than baseline. Our analysis suggests almost 100,000 incremental Fans were generated by the campaign.

Redbox’s Facebook Buzz also increased during the promotion.

Facebook Buzz is a measure of how much people are talking with, at, and about a brand on Facebook. The more Buzz, the more potential for generating consumer interactions and forging new user relationships.

Our numbers, combined with praise from mothers highlighted on Redbox’s Timeline:

 Thanks for the wonderful Mother’s Day gift. Made for a wonderful afternoon my daughter and me. – Theresa

- we’re judging this one a success.

Red Lobster: The Classic Giveaway 

The Stats:
164% incremental increase in Engagement (over baseline)
46% incremental increase in Buzz (over baseline)

Taking Mom out to lunch is a Mother’s Day must, and the nation’s largest seafood restaurant chain was out to make sure they were the destination of choice.

Red Lobster’s Mother’s Day Daily Giveaway is an online version of a good old fashioned enter-to-win raffle drawing.  Over a twelve day period, Facebook users could enter daily to win a $50 gift card and a bouquet of flowers.

The Mother’s Day Giveaway was heavily promoted on their Facebook page, generating thousands of LIKES and helping to spike their engagement scores.

Engagement is about how successful a brand’s social media interactions are with consumers. It measures how well be respond to their posts with LIKEs and comments.

This is a great example of how a low-stakes, low cost promotion (just twelve $50 gift cards) generated valuable interest and attention, reminding Facebook users that mommas love their mahi-mahi.

Michaels: Memories with Mom – Virtual Scrapbooking

The Stats:
165% incremental increase in Engagement (over baseline)

Of all the Mother’s Day Facebook promotions, Michaels – the national craft retailer – may have had one of the more innovative approaches – and certainly one of the most successful.

Since converting to the new Timeline structure, many brands have tried to exploit the new format to engage users’ personal histories.  Michaels’ Memories with Mom encourages users to mine their own timelines and curate a special gallery celebrating the times they shared with their mothers:

Baby’s first steps. The day you made cupcakes from scratch. The night you camped in the yard. That walk on the beach. Honor your very best memories every single day. Create the perfect gift by dedicating a Timeline gallery of photos. Be sure to enter the Michaels Memories with Mom Sweepstakes for a chance to win a $300 Michaels gift card!

Not only was it gorgeously designed, the app also featured an easy to use interface that encouraged sharing galleries with your Facebook circle, and also included the chance to win a $300 gift card.

During the course of the promotion, Track Social’s Campaign Tracker saw Michael’s engagement scores increased a stunning 165% over baseline making this one of the most successful – and definitely most meaningful – Mother’s Day promotion we found this year.

A big congratulations to Redbox, Red Lobster, and Michaels – Track Social’s 2012 Best Mother’s Day Facebook Campaign Winners!

Curious to see how other campaigns are performing? Sign up for Track Social to gain access to the numbers behind the campaign scenes, advanced metrics, and much more.

Track Social’s Social Media Zone is a portal for assessing the activity of all Social Media Brands on the major platforms – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.

We looked at the leaders in Audience Growth Rate in order to predict what might be the next big thing in Social. Some of the growth leaders you’ve probably heard about in the news, others maybe not.

Social growth measures how many new connections a brand is making across the already well-established social media platforms.

In other words, how well are these new social utilities leveraging their visibility on more established social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter in order to spread their name, generate buzz and sign-up new members?

Track Social’s Social Media Zone shows the Social Brand Map, which plots how social media sites are performing on, well, social media. The color of the balls represents how quickly it is growing – with red and orange indicating hot and fast growth. This means the hottest social sites are establishing new connections with online users faster than the rest of the pack. Only 5 social media sites out of our list of 147 can claim rights to a sizzling hot ball – here’s the top 5 in social growth rate:

1. Instagram: Humans. Love. Photos.

We love taking them. Looking at them. Sharing them. And of course, digitally tweaking them so we appear to be much better photographers than we actually are.

At least that was the great insight of Instagram founders who are now a cool billion dollars richer thanks to Facebook’s recent acquisition of the uber-popular photo sharing app now downloaded by over 50 million mobile users.

So now that Instagram has officially joined with the Zuckerburg and company, how is it using Facebook to engage with fans and recruit new users?

Instagram posts on Facebook are mainly re-posts from its official Instagram blog, which offers creative thematic challenges for the community, inviting users to submit their instagram-ed photos related to specific themes.

One regular challenge, the Weekend Hashtag Project, recently invited submissions for vacant places and empty chairs. These posts highlight the usefulness and uniqueness of Instagram’s app – no wonder Instagram is on track to hitting 100 million users.

On Twitter, Instagram has managed to rack up over 3 million followers. This is largely due to Instagram’s auto-follow policy. If you use Twitter to distribute an Instagram photo, you’re essentially agreeing to “follow” Instagram. And while that might make it easier to get people signed up, keeping that audience requires facilitating engagement through fun, regular challenges the Weekend Hashtag Project.

Instagram owes a lot to Twitter for popularizing both the format and language of a “sharing community”: “Feeds” and “Followers” are common to both and this overlap helps account for the large number of users who routinely use Twitter to distribute the photos they take with Instagram – a partnership we expect will continue to grow – unless Facebook decides otherwise.

[And just for good measure, the immanently shareable Pets of Instagram.]

2. MyYearbook: Engineering Serendipity

A recent marketing piece from one of MyYearbook’s co-founders helps define this new kind of social network as an alternative to traditional online dating sites. What makes them stand out from all the other dating sites? MyYearbook stands behind the idea that people prefer to start out as friends before jumping into a romantic relationship. According to the company, MyYearbook has signed up over 33 million members since 2005 – meaning over 33 million people are also on board with this idea.

The rise of social networks and the ubiquity of mobile devices have given way to a new crop of mobile social networks – the Meeting Networks – which threatens to eat the dating industry’s $4 billion lunch by making them a subset of a larger “meet new people” space.

Notice whose lunch they are not out to eat: Facebook’s. In fact, MyYearbook offers a “one click” registration if you sign in through your Facebook account, a clear indication they’re staking out a different kind of social media territory.

Call them Meeting Networks, call them Social Discovery Sites, MyYearbook attempts to connect people through playing online games, sharing videos, and giving virtual gifts (via an online currency called “Lunch Money” – we’re not making that up).  It’s a space intended to facilitate new connections that might ultimately lead, according to satisfied customer “Mike, 33” to finding your “soulmate.” Mazel tov, Mike.

3. Pinterest: Come ye pinners.

Our number 3 seemed to have blown up overnight, so it’s no surprise that their significant audience growth has also given them office growth.

Technically, Pinterest is not just a photo-sharing site. It invites users (called pinners) to create boards where they can “pin” anything of interest they find on the web. If you’ve been living in a dark hole or haven’t noticed yet, there has been a storm of “Pin It” share button that has hit so many sites – making it easy for internet browsers to quickly pin away.

Pinners compile collections on an infinite number of topics: wedding planning, say, or recipes. Or physics. It’s an organizer’s dream. If your users are mining the internet for cool stuff, some of those “pins” might just stir some buzz. A Dirty Dancing Page, for example, received over 13,000 LIKES on Facebook. As we stated earlier with Instgram, humans love photos.

4. Bebo: Didn’t AOL pay $850 million for this?

Sure did. After buying Bebo for $850 million in 2008, AOL unloaded the networking site in 2010 for $10 million. Bebo may have originally been conceived as an alterative and rival to Facbook but those ambitions (delusions?) seem to have been left behind. These days, Bebo is trying to occupy the same space as MyYearbook – with a dedicated dating site attached and you guessed it – its own gaming outlet. It looks like users are looking for a space where they can combine the perks of both Facebook and MyYearbook – which steers them toward our number 4 – Bebo.

5. Scoop.it: Make your own magazine

Scoop.it is an online content curation platform allowing users to create their own blog-like spaces that allows you to pull content from all over the web and re-publish it into attractive templates. Effectively, you become the editor of your own online magazine.  It’s part of the mash-up movement the web has sparked, repurposing, remixing and re- contextualizing content into something new.

Scoop.it is promising because of the nature of their service. Just like Pinterest, Scoop.it offers users an easy way to collect and curate the things they discover online. Spotlighting some user-generated gems might be a great way to attract Facebook Fans and Twitter Followers, as well as showcasing the value of the app itself.

Rounding out our top 10 social media sites and apps with the highest growth rates are:

6. reddit
7. Buffer
8. Bit.ly
9. Draugiem.lv
10. Hacker News

Follow the stats, trends, news and updates for the entire Social Media universe at Track Social’s Social Media Zone. What shows up on today’s Leaderboard, might just be tomorrow’s most ubiquitous platform.

 **This article was based on the Leaderboard as of Monday, May 7, 2012. Actual Leaderboard changes on an ongoing basis.

Using the Track Social platform we have analyzed NHL teams’ performance in the four essential categories – the Social Pillars – of social medial success: Presence, Audience, Engagement, and Buzz.

Here’s a look at the top 10 overall performers as of April 30, 2012 on the Track Social NHL Leaderboard with a special focus on how the top 5 are beating out the competition:

#5 Detroit Red Wings

Round 1 wasn’t kind to Detroit; their 4-1 loss to Nashville was a disappointing season-ender for Red Wings fans. And with almost 1.25 million Facebook Fans and over 166,000 Twitter Followers, that turns out to be quite a lot of disappointment. In fact, Detroit claims first place in the Audience category and comes in at number 5 in our Overall rankings.

The Audience category measures the total number of ongoing relationships a brand has formed through Likes and Follows.

Founded as the Detroit Cougars in 1926, its proud history and deep roots have made it a Detroit institution with a fan base that’s now spread well beyond its region.

In fact, the Red Wings make a point of showing off just how far-flung Red Wing Nation really is. Their Facebook Fan of the Day post, highlights Red Wing pride all over the world – including this recent winner stationed in Afghanistan.

The Red Wings have also boosted audience numbers by giving away free T-shirts for new Twitter followers, and by hosting game day viewing parties where they sign up new fans – a great way to merge online and offline interaction.

#4 Vancouver Canucks

The Canucks rank number 4 in Overall Social Media success and number 2 in the Social Media Presence category.

Social Media Presence measures a team’s visibility online, how well established and active it is on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Establishing a dynamic online presence is the first step in capturing a social media audience.

Despite their Round 1 loss to the Los Angeles Kings, Vancouver’s solid performance across Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, accounts for its high ranking in the Presence category. This is a testament both to the team’s social media strategy and Canucks’ fans’ loyalty.

Social Media success is never just a one-sided initiative – it’s a collaboration between the brand and the audience.

Social media gives teams an unprecedented opportunity to channel fans’ goodwill into positive franchise growth. That’s why connecting teams to fans through creative content, posts and updates across multiple platforms spurs engagement, which perpetuates audience interaction and sustains growth.

A simple Canucks’ Tweet from April 22nd sums up the collaborative spirit of successful social media engagement: “Watching the game outside of #Vancouver? Let us know where you’re at (restaurant? diner? bar?) with #canucksnation.”

#3 New Jersey Devils

With an Overall ranking of number 3, the Devils also score high in the all-important Engagement category.

Engagement is about how successful a team’s social media interactions are with consumers. In other words, when a team posts or tweets, does anybody care? Do Fans respond with comments, likes, and retweets, or are there crickets? It’s possible for a brand to rack up big numbers of Facebook Fans and still not capitalize on that audience if their online interactions fail to keep fans engaged.

Contests have always been a go-to strategy for drumming up consumer interest. But it’s increasingly important for contests to offer Fans more than just a worthwhile prize: some of the best engagement strategies give audiences a creative challenge as well.

The Devils Doodle Contest, invited fans to submit a drawing celebrating the Devils in the Playoffs. Fans could then vote on their favorites with the top ten finalists getting free tickets to the Fan Appreciation Game. (The Grand Prize winner gets season tickets next year and his or her design printed on Red Rally Towels.)

#2 St. Louis Blues

Having bested the Sharks in Round 1, the St. Louis Blues are exploiting their performance in the Playoffs to increase online engagement.

Though they have a ways to go in terms of overall audience numbers (about 240,000 Facebook fans), their performance in the Engagement category elevates them to the number two spot in the overall rankings.

St. Louis loads both their Facebook page and Twitter feed with video links to player interviews, highlights and analysis, establishing their social media presence as the go-to spot for Blues news.

St. Louis also gets a big engagement bump from posting Community Photos showcasing Blues pride all over St. Louis. These photo albums are big draws for LIKEs and help connect fans to the excitement of the playoffs.

#1 Pittsburgh Penguins

Despite their 5-1 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers, when it comes to social media, the Pittsburgh Penguins are far and away the league champions. The Penguins take the number one spot in both the Engagement as well as the Buzz category.

Buzz is a measure of how much people are talking with, at, and about a brand in the Social Media Universe. Audience numbers and engagement scores definitely play into a brand’s Buzz, but so does the general level of chatter about all things related to a brand.

Pittsburgh maintains its number one spot by actively engaging its loyal fan base and continually recruiting new Fans and Followers: “If you aren’t following @pghpenguins on Twitter, you should fix that. We’re giving away THREE pairs of tickets today, an autographed Brooks Orpik jersey and a $500 gift card to Dick’s Sporting Goods. (We also have to point out that Pittsburgh’s Twitter logo is the absolute best.)

A recent Look-alike contest, a Fan of Day drawing and resolutely positive posts (a recent Happy Birthday post for Craig Adams racked up almost 7,000 LIKES) create a consistent message that perfectly supports the Penguins’ upbeat brand: “It’s a great day for Hockey.”

This is in direct contrast to another kind of social media branding currently embraced by the team that just knocked Pittsburgh out of the Playoffs…

The Philadelphia Flyers come in at number 6 on our Leaderboard, but they’re also noteworthy for turning their Facebook wall into a locker-room wall.

With posts that range from the sophomoric to the crude, the Flyers seem determined to prove that the “city of brotherly love” thing is meant to be ironic. Though the off-color posts are usually fan generated and are not “official” Flyers updates, the Flyers have the ability to sanction or remove posts as they see fit. But hey, they don’t call it Filth-adelphia for nothing.

Rounding out our top 10 list as of April 30 after #6 Philadelphia are:

#7 New York Rangers
#8 Boston Bruins
#9 Chicago Blackhawks
#10 Columbus Blue Jackets

Some notable absences from our top 10** include four teams currently battling it out in Round 2 of the Playoffs: the Los Angeles Kings, the Nashville Predators, the Phoenix Coyotes, and the Washington Capitals. Will these teams be able to spin playoff success into social media gold?  Keep up to date on how all these teams are performing with Track Social’s NHL Leaderboard.

 **This article was based on the Leaderboard as of Monday, April 30, 2012. Actual Leaderboard changes on an ongoing basis.

Track Social monitors a brand’s Social Media Engagement by measuring response levels to different type of social content, such as Posts and Tweets, and by benchmarking brands against each other.

Here is the Top Ten Fast Food Brands in Social Media Engagement:

1. Krispy Kreme
2. Chick-fil-A
3. Wienerschnitzel
4. Taco Bell
5. McDonald’s
6. El Pollo Loco
7. Wendy’s
8. Jack in the Box
9. Whataburger
10. Jamba Juice

To see the full leaderboard, and numerous other analytics on the activity of fast food brands in social media, check out the Track Social Fast Food Zone.

For those interested in how what we can learn from the leading players in Social Media Engagement, including some brands that are not as well known as others, we provide some interesting case studies below.

Krispy Kreme

If there’s one thing Krispy Kreme can teach us, it’s that the glazed doughnut has the power to work miracles. Not only did its original glazed doughnut fuel Krispy Kreme’s (now notorious) national expansion, it also preserved the company when it grew too fast. Whatever mistakes Krispy Kreme made in the early 2000s, America simply would not allow the melt-in-you-mouth glazed goodness to disappear forever. In fact, not only is the glazed doughnut the centerpiece of Krispy Kreme’s business model, it’s also the star attraction of its Facebook page. A recent post featuring a simple picture of a glazed doughnut with the caption, “Ooo, original glazed” generated over 32,000 Likes in just five days. When you’ve got something people love, there’s no shame in leading with it.

Chick-fil-A

Currently embroiled – or is it deep fried? – in controversy over what kinds of causes its philanthropic foundation supports, Chick-fil-A might be facing calls for boycotts in some quarters, but the chicken seller, famous for its devious “spokes-cows,” is number two when it comes to online engagement. Having recently racked up it 5 millionth Facebook Fan, its Facebook engagement strategy reflects the company’s tendency to march to their own drum.

When was the last time you saw a post like this: “Nothing against Facebook…but nothing beats some good old-fashioned backyard games with the family. Download our activities and head outside.” That’s right, Chick-fil-A has created an entire “Old School Fun” Facebook app devoted to suggestions for old fashioned “offline” engagement. So it’s a bit paradoxical that a brand devoting time to getting people off Facebook seems to do so well keeping them on.

But it’s not hard to see why: their posts are generally creative, light and – like the spokes-cows themselves – innocently sassy. Their April Fools post was also one of the best we saw this year, and garnered over 10,000 responses.

Aside from Facebook, Chick-fil-A rocks when it comes to Twitter engagement. Actively replying to countless fans that mention @ChickfilA, Chick-fil-A uses Twitter largely as a customer service outlet. This communication via Twitter is important – not only to hear complaints and take recommendations, but also to self-promote without cost. Retweeting pics and declarations of followers’ love for the Banana Pudding Milkshake can do wonders for a brand’s engagement. One of the best things Chick-fil-A does with Twitter? Announce openings of new Chick-fil-A chains and build hype with free PR: “#First100 customers get free meals 4 a yr.” No doubt will they have fans camping out prior to the grand opening.

Wienerschnitzel

Compared to some of the huge national chains on our list, Wienerschnitzel is a smaller, regional brand (mostly in California and the southwest). That’s why their presence in our top 10 – let alone coming in at number 3 – is so significant.

For Wienerschnitzel, the success of their posts is all about using images effectively. Every post and update has a fun image attached, strategically deigned to elicit Likes. And they do. This one especially.

McDonald’s

The 800 lbs. gorilla. Yes, its presence on any fast food-related top ten is pretty much requisite. Over 18 million Facebook, billions and billions served, blah blah blah…

But here’s a little secret about McDonald’s engagement strategy: they’re cheating. McDonald’s doesn’t allow users to post their own comments to its timeline wall. That means anything you want to say to (or about) McDonald’s on Facebook has to be posted as a comment on one of McDonald’s own official posts. This naturally bumps up the numbers for response per post, making McDonald’s posts look more Like-able than they might actually be.

Jack in the Box

Coming in at a respectable number 8, Jack in the Box is another regional brand doing remarkably well in online engagement. As you’d expect from their idiosyncratic, risk-taking TV campaigns, Jack in the Box’s Facebook presence affects a similarly hard-to-put-your-finger-on randomness. (Kind of like their menu, come to think of it.)

“Hi, I’m Jack,” their Facebook timeline heading declares, “If you like tasty fast food and snarky updates, our Facebook future is bright.” Of all the brands in our top ten, Jack in the Box has taken the most risk using it’s Facebook posts to establish the Jack “character” by posting updates that purport to be Jack’s own quirky musings. Not all of them are successful (“Plural of walrus is… walruses? Walri? Anyone?”) but it does represent a bold experiment that seems to be paying off.

These signature Jack posts aren’t just for Facebook Fans. The same sort of randomness can be found on Jack in the Box’s Twitter account, explaining why their Twitter engagement is so great. Like Chick-fil-A, Jack in the Box uses Twitter as an opportunity to communicate with consumers – but rather than the generic “thank you” tweet, Jack thinks outside the box. “Thanks for being down with the Jack in the Box cause. You’re definitely a top ten pick for my dodgeball team,” or “Thanks. You are a true fan. Not like my neighbor who pretends to like my dog to get free Tacos. That dude’s totally fake.” We gotta hand it to Jack for knowing how to make happy customers laugh and feel special.

Whataburger

America loves ketchup. That appears to be the take-away lesson for the top-10 success of hamburger chain Whataburger, who, like Wienerschnitzel, is hitting above its weight in the social engagement category.

So many of this month’s posts on the Whatburger Facebook page were devoted to the tomato-based condiment that we started to wonder if there was a holiday we’d missed. There’s ketchup everywhere. Fancy ketchup. Spicy ketchup. Limited time only ketchup. And it seems to have struck a national nerve. When almost 16,000 people Like this post: “Like this picture if you love Whataburger’s Fancy Ketchup” we must either conclude Whataburger has struck red gold…or addictive chemicals are involved.

Facebook remains a space for brands to define their relationship with consumers based on more than just how many TV spots they can buy. Building interest and retaining loyalty through real engagement is about creativity and ingenuity. And even McDonald’s doesn’t have a lock on those.

Is your favorite go-to fast food brand missing above?  Find out where it landed on here on Track Social’s Fast Food Zone!

In just the past few weeks, there has been an explosion of brands jumping on the Instagram bandwagon. Track Social has been following brands’ use of Instagram on Facebook through it’s searchable database of active Facebook apps and we have seen a continuous stream of new Instagram initiatives.

Among the list of brands that have already incorporated Instagram into their Facebook pages, a select few deserve praise for tapping into consumer creativity. What we’ve found will come as no surprise to anyone who’s ever stumbled on, say the ePrize photo stream: no one cares about your Instagram photo feed.

In many cases, brands that have set-up dedicated Instagram Facebook apps are simply providing a slideshow of blandly captioned (and totally underwhelming) photos that – despite their sepia filters – utterly fail to get anyone’s attention or generate one iota of actual online engagement.

This all seems to stem from a compete misunderstanding of what Instagram is FOR.

For millions of app users, the pleasure of Instagram is the way it makes us feel like artists. The way it allows us to instantly transform the things we encounter in our daily comings-and-goings into bits of ephemera. The way Instagram’s filters – which may soon enough become passé – allow us to inject a little soft-focus mystery into our humdrum routines. The way, with the touch of a button, we can recontextualize, and thus re-enchant, the world, capturing it in a way that encases our point of view in a seemingly timeless package. Instant nostalgia.

Which is to say, we don’t want to look at your boring PR photos slapped with sepia. We want to make our own.

Through Track Social’s News Feed, we were able to pin down just when and which brands have created Facebook apps for Instagram, and even better, which are running campaigns to not only promote their brand, but also encourage fans to be proactive.  Here are just two examples of innovative Instagram-ing already underway. Each offers a glimpse at how brands can harness this increasingly useful way to entice user interaction.

SEE U @ SAKS

Saks Fifth Avenue is inviting shoppers to come into their stores armed with smart phones and find one item they can’t live without, photograph it with Instagram, tell everyone what makes it so special and why they want it, and by including hashtag #SeeUAtSaks, they could win $1,000. Why is this absolutely brilliant? Let us count the ways:

1)    Social campaigns don’t always have the advantage of directly driving in-store traffic, but this one encourages both online and offline engagement by getting users through the door.

2)    Every single Instagram-ed image is an instant advertisement for the product being photographed and for Saks. Not to mention, by having users describe why they want the item, consumers are essentially writing their own sales copy.

3)    All these pictures and captions get posted by users on their Twitter feed for all their friends and followers to see. For $1,000, Saks gets direct access to the friend networks of its most critical target audience. That’s a picture worth more than a thousand bucks.

WHOLE FOODS EARTH MONTH PHOTO CONTEST

We’ll let Whole Foods explain:

“Each week during Earth Month we’ll select a new theme that captures one reason why it’s more critical than ever that we take special care of this world in which we are lucky enough to live. To enter, simply take a photo that fits the weekly theme with the Instagram App and upload it with the #WFMEarth hashtag. We’ll randomly select one weekly winner to receive a $100 Whole Foods Market gift card.”

Whole Foods gets it: they understand their consumers are savvy and creative – and more importantly, that they’re eager to demonstrate just how creative and savvy they are.

So Whole Foods becomes the facilitator of creativity – much like the app itself – providing the occasion and opportunity to show off, get recognition and maybe even collect a reward.

After being tested, ranked, evaluated, interviewed and waitlisted, high school seniors all over America anxiously wait with hopes of securing spots at their dream schools. Meanwhile, Track Social has been subjecting the Universities’ Social Media Performance to the same types of rigorous tests.

Hundreds of metrics on social media activities are collected, crunched, benchmarked, and rolled up to the four key Social Pillars – the essential categories of social marketing success: Presence, Audience, Engagement, and Buzz. We then combine the Pillars to produce the Overall Performance of each school. For the full Track Social University Leaderboard go here.

Here are the Top Universities on Social Media and how they did it:

#1. UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS

Surprised?

Maybe you shouldn’t be. Kansas clinches the title with a strong showing in the all-important and difficult Engagement category:

Engagement is about how successful a brand’s social media interactions are with consumers. In other words, when a school posts or Tweets, does anybody care? Are there crickets or are there outpourings of comments, likes, and Retweets? It’s possible for a brand to rack up big numbers of Facebook Fans and still not capitalize on that audience if its online interactions fail to keep fans engaged.

To be sure, Kansas got a big boost from its performance in the NCAA tournament – a clear case of why college sports are so important to many schools’ financial and marketing success. By far the biggest Facebook engagement-building posts for Kansas have been sports related – including this one from the NCAA tournament with John Hamm and Jason Sudeikis.

But spinning offline success into social media gold requires more than a good basketball team – it’s also about an intentional engagement strategy. Capitalizing on its Final Four appearance, KU smartly flooded its Twitter feed with a series of Tweets like: “What else at KU is in the top 4 nationally? No. 2 in Hearst awards in journalism (the college ‘Pulitzers’) cc@kujournalism #kubball #KUFacts.”

These kinds of engagement strategies – exploiting newsworthy events to get more mileage out of posts and Tweets – help explain why Kansas deserves its place in the number one spot.

#2. BAYLOR UNIVERSITY

It was a good week in Waco.

Baylor’s social media rankings got a huge bump from the Lady Bears’ victory over Notre Dame in the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament. The victory capped a perfect season (40-0) and boosted Baylor to the #2 spot in the Engagement category. Tweets and Facebook posts hailing the National Championship racked up major attention, allowing Baylor to soar past bigger, more well-known schools.

For a Christian school with a solid academic reputation, Baylor’s Facebook presence is disproportionately dominated by sports. But that might just be the lesson here: Baylor has found a way to drive engagement through sports – which helps elevates its visibility and builds brand recognition. In other words, lead with your strengths.

#3. YALE UNIVERSITY

When it comes to college rankings, Yale’s had a couple hundred years to get used to being number three – consistently falling in the shadows of big brothers Harvard and Princeton. But when it comes to social media, Yale’s #3 ranking on the Track Social Leaderboard is a huge achievement. Not only does it mean beating Harvard – something that doesn’t happen very often in just about anything – but it also means claiming the top spot in the Social Presence category.

Social Media Presence measures a school’s visibility online, how well established and active it is on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Establishing a dynamic online presence is the first step in capturing a social media audience.

Yale’s solid performance across Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube  indicates a coherent and coordinated engagement strategy that capitalizes on Yale’s Ivy League pedigree. Twitter posts routinely publish links to new research while its Facebook timeline highlights V.I.P. visits (including one from Shah Rukh Khan), lecture topics and well-chosen slide shows of student life on the rarified campus.

Remember that before there were “brands”, there were simply “reputations” – something the Ivys have cultivated for generations. What Yale has demonstrated is a laudable awareness that establishing a reputation with the next generation will require a great deal of social media savvy. Its robust social strategy – active on all platforms – aims to exhibit the superior achievement that they’ve always been known for, ensuring that the world’s best and brightest will still be clamoring – or Tweeting – for ways to get in.

#4. HARVARD UNIVERSITY

It might not be such a surprise that the incubator of Facebook itself (not to mention American higher education) comes in so high in our overall ranking. But it also dominates the Social Audience category.

The Audience category measures the total number of ongoing relationships a brand has formed through Likes, Follows, and Subscribers.

With over 1.6 million Likes, the Facebook presence of the nation’s oldest university dwarfs most other schools. But given its 300+ year history, and its place in American culture, Harvard certainly has an edge on the competition when it comes to attracting an audience.

From links to articles about “Magnetism on the Moon” to insights into the storied traditions of campus life, Harvard’s Facebook timeline – which does indeed go back all the way to 1636 (oh, how quaint the Tweets were back then) – presents an abundant sampling of the diverse intellectual and cultural feast from one of America’s most elite institutions.

This also helps explain why Harvard also claims the tops spot in the Social Buzz category.

Buzz is a measure of how much people are talking with, at, and about a brand in the Social Media Universe. Audience numbers and engagement scores definitely play into a brand’s Buzz, but so does the general level of chatter about all things related to a brand.

Recent Facebook posts the Hubble discovering a new planet get almost as much attention as those about Jeremy Lin (an alum) and the visiting Lady Gaga.

Interestingly, even though Princeton currently shares a #1 ranking with Harvard in the most recent US News & World Report rankings, Princeton’s nowhere to be found in the Track Social Top 10. It comes in at a decidedly, dare we say, below-average, #29.

#5 UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY

Kentucky rounds out the top five this week. Maybe not quite as high as they’d prefer, but they can’t be too greedy after snatching their eighth NCAA championship.

And yes, it’s true, all that basketball action certainly did mobilize Kentucky’s active network of fans, students and alumni, which has helped keep Wildcat nation humming recently. Like Baylor, athletics is important for Kentucky in boosting that critical engagement score.

But Kentucky also gets social media mileage by incorporating creative posts from the Wildcat community. Posts like this reflect the kind of engagement you can’t manufacture. That’s the kind of old fashioned pride that that gets built “offline” and can’t help but find expression online.

Now for those universities that were just short of making it into our Top 5:

6. University of Pittsburgh
7. Texas A&M University
8. Stanford University
9. University of Florida
10. University of Wisconsin – Madison

Don’t see your Alma mater in the Top 10? Find out where it landed on Track Social’s Universities Zone! Promise you’ll be shocked at the results. Teaser: Columbia has probably never seen itself ranked so far down a list before.

Editor’s Note: If there’s a university you believe should be in our Universities Zone but isn’t, or if you see any mistakes, please let us know here and we will take care of it.

Health Care Reform, Tax Fairness, The War in Afghanistan, Occupy Wall Street, same-sex marriage. These are just a few of the hottest and heated issues that presently divide our nation. While individuals look to their political, religious, cultural, and personal beliefs to take a stance on the matters, many companies stay quiet and impartial – fearful to not outrage consumers. But there’s one major company that doesn’t seem to shy away from the controversy, and in fact, welcomes it.

From gay marriage to gun rights, Starbucks has staked its image on some very public, and potentially risky, social-political positions. And thanks to social media, consumers can interact with brands in the same ways they interact with people. This raises an important question: how does a multi-national mega-brand, responsible for crafting a consistent image all over the globe, manage to navigate the potentially treacherous waters of hot-button cultural and political issues in the places where it does business?

For most big brands, the answer is simple – refrain from alienating consumers by simply refusing to engage in potentially controversial dialogue.

But as big brands come to play greater and greater roles in shaping culture, the positions they’ve come to occupy as arbiters of tastes, trends and, yes, values, take on larger significance. Both Microsoft and Amazon have also joined forces to support the legalization of gay marriage. The ubiquity of these mega-brands – both online and off – amplifies their perceived cultural authority. And in a society in which the marketplace encroaches further and further into our personal lives and is woven ever more tightly into the national fabric, the brands we use the most start to resemble significant cultural battlegrounds themselves – with boycotts, anti-boycotts and threats of boycotts becoming de rigueur.

So a company’s positions on the controversial questions of the day are inherently fraught; they have the potential to alter – or even sever – relationships with consumers. But that’s partly what makes Starbucks – and its Facebook presence – so interesting.

With 29.5 million Likes, the Starbucks Facebook Page is a large forum indeed. Besides the usual corporate fare – product highlights, promos, special deals, and innocuous engagement posts (“Coffee and snow go together like _____ and _____.”) – the Starbucks Facebook Page is also place for spirited discussion not only of its products, but also of the company’s positions.

The last few months have been particularly active for political speech on the Starbucks Page because of two controversial topics: Starbucks’ explicit endorsement of the marriage equality bill in its home state of Washington, and a boycott organized by the National Gun Victim’s Action Council to protest Starbucks’ policy of allowing customers to carry guns in stores when and where it’s legal.

On January 25, Starbucks posted on its Facebook Page, “We are proud to support Marriage Equality legislation in the Washington State Legislature,” with a link to an article in the Seattle Times. It was followed the same day with: “MARRIAGE=ONE MAN + ONE WOMAN FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! God made Adam and EVE not Adam and STEVE!” from a user named Rebecca Curry DeMent of Goshen, Indiana. February 6 and 7 highlight posts from two pro-gay marriage groups urging, in one case for people to declare: “I’m going to Starbucks BECAUSE they support the right thing,” and in the other, to sign a “thank you letter” to Starbucks.

Then, later in the month, an anti-gun violence group revived earlier attempts to pressure Starbucks to ban guns in its stores, by calling for a boycott on Valentine’s Day. One user’s comment from February 16 announced: “Goodbye starbucks…..over roasted coffee and supporters of criminals with guns..not to mention over priced. You are going the way of BOA…down!!” This post is followed days later by a highlighted comment from another user praising Starbucks: “thank you for standing up for the right to bear arms, and not giving in to the anti-gun/anti-freedom pressure.”

Whereas other brands might police comments not just for offensive statements but also for negative or antagonistic reactions to a brand’s product, service or corporate positions, Starbucks allows this speech to continue unfettered, even when it rises to the level of being present on their Timeline Highlights.

It’s a nod to the long tradition of diligently publishing incensed “letters to the editor” which were always useful in reminding us just how divergent people’s views could be. Of course, today, letters to the editor seem almost quaint, thanks in no small measure to Facebook itself. It’s on Facebook that every urge, peeve, dispute and rant (as well like, love and fancy) can be instantly announced. Which is why it’s increasingly absurd that so many companies still fear the kind of open dialog that Facebook encourages. Companies seem to be desperate to build online audiences while at the same time eschewing the whole point of free exchange.

And that might just be what sets Starbucks apart in the online space: Starbucks doesn’t seem to fear the debate that social media fosters.

So while some companies whitewash their Facebook Pages with a vigilance that would make the North Korean’s envious, Starbucks appears to allow users to speak their minds – while still reserving the right to remove comments that are hateful or outright inflammatory.

It’s a strategy that’s not without risk – and needlessly courting controversy isn’t usually in companies’ best long term interests. But for Starbucks, allowing open dissent on its Facebook Page represents a compelling – and essential – form of consumer engagement that most companies still don’t have the stomach for.

But that might be changing. Because consumers’ emerging awareness that their clothes, food, computers, and coffee actually come from somewhere, and that the processes of delivering those things are fraught with all kinds of ethical and political questions, means that brands will have to increasingly engage with consumers over these questions. It’s the internet, in large part, which has helped provoke this consumer awakening – and it’s social media that will keep the debate going. Companies would do well to understand that real consumer engagement might mean more than just funny tweets and exclusive bargains.

Starbucks on Track Social
Starbucks’ Facebook Page

The internet is supplanting TV as the go-to entertainment medium for people under 30.

Even though Season 5 of “Jersey Shore” – the reality show credited with reviving MTV’s edge – regularly enjoys high ratings, MTV knows that spray-tanned guidos won’t keep them in the spotlight forever. So with 32 million+ Facebook Fans, MTV is clearly taking the migration of its core demo – from passive TV viewing to active online interaction – very seriously.

MTV uses its Facebook presence as a kind of online promo aggregator – a buffet with bite-sized appetizers delivered from all over MTV’s extensive stable of blogs, niche websites, TV programming and movies. And though they were an early adopter of the new Facebook timeline (if you wanna be a trend setter, be the first to change) the content strategy has remained consistent: show promos, celebs news, movie news and trailers, and lots and lots of Beiber.

Posts from MTV’s Buzzworthy blog tease the latest pop culture whatnot, including plenty of celebrity gossip. Tabloid updates are a staple, with the usual suspects – Gaga, Jonas Borthers, Rihanna (both clothed and unclothed), and Beiber’s hair – making regular appearances. A recent pic of Rihanna’s scandalous see-through top no doubt had the affect her publicists hoped it would: almost 8,000 LIKES in less than 24 hours.

Other posts offer clips from anticipated movies like the upcoming Hunger Games as well as interviews with the cast and even a live-streamed red-carpet event.

Watch live right now as we talk to all the Tributes at The Hunger Games red carpet premiere!

Meanwhile posts from “MTV Geek!” spotlight rumors, trailers, and other bits of comic book fandom fodder.

MTV EXCLUSIVE! MTV Geek has all the deets on ‘Before The Watchmen’! Check it out here.

Which brings us to an important lesson: MTV’s Facebook page has something for just about every kind of media-saturated kid.

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, It Will Be Web-Streamed.

In successfully transitioning from a niche cable music channel to a multi-faceted youth media mega-brand, MTV has transformed itself into an array of media outlets, appealing to a host of youth subcultures. There’s even “MTV Act” for kids who prefer their pop-culture with a healthy dose of political activism.

MTV’s Facebook page draws eyeballs – and drives interaction – by pulling all these threads together and spooling them out in small nuggets. Sample what you like, pass on what you don’t. There is music, there is video, there is text – all moving at the frenetic pace of our modern digital lifestyle and keeping pace with the ceaseless demand for Entertainment Anywhere.

MTV’s Track Social Profile
MTV’s Facebook Page
MTV’s Website

Yes, it’s true, St. Patrick’s Day honors a fourth-century priest who may very well have saved Western Civilization. But let’s be honest, these days it’s really about the green beer.

So with March 17th just around the corner, we’re embarking on a virtual pub-crawl to sample how the world’s top beer brands are performing on social media. And for those who like their online engagement best served cold and frosty, you can play along at home: just crack open your #FavoriteBeer and take a healthy swig every time you see the word “Facebook.” Guaranteed to be the most enjoyable reading you do all day.

#10 – Blue Moon: 143,600+ Facebook Fans
This popular Belgian White from Colorado has a distinct citrus taste (courtesy of Curaccao orange peel) and a distinct branded image (courtesy of its watercolor-inspired advertising.) Appealing to a more sophisticated set, Blue Moon invites Facebook Fans to turn their Facebook Photos into “Blue Moon Art”. Similar to other photo-enhancing programs, Blue Moon’s “Photo Crafter” app gives photos the watercolor treatment. It’s either that – or the “beer goggles effect.” Hard to tell.

#9 – Foster’s: 279,000+ Facebook Fans
Foster’s is celebrating “the Art of Chilling,” inviting Facebook Fans to send their friends a “Chill Head” – a Wall-Post icon representing one of 17 different ways to chill. (Only the Australians could possibly classify so many ways to relax.) There’s Chillhead Boombox, Chillhead Surfer, and Chillhead Burp to name a few. Match them to your friends’ personalities and Foster’s posts them to their Facebook Walls. We looked, but Chillhead Drunk-dial wasn’t one of the choices.

#8 – Stella Artois: 502,000+ Facebook Fans
For a tutorial in cultivating pretension, drop by the Stella Artois Facebook page. You’ll (maybe) be invited to (maybe) join their exclusive online La Societe club. (Maybe). It’s “invitation only” after all. Which means upon entering your email address you get this: “Thanks, we’ve added you to our waiting list.” To get the full charming effect, be sure to read that with a French accent.

#7 – Guinness: 504,000+ Facebook Fans
Of all beer brands on our list, Guinness has the most authentic claim to cashing in on St. Patrick’s Day. So much so, in fact, that it’s flooding its wall with anything and everything St. Patrick’s Day-related. From helping Facebook Fans map out their St. Patrick’s Day route with the Pub Finder app, to fun facts, and even asking fans to partake in helping set the World Record for the Biggest St. Patrick’s Day Party. Over 52,000 Guinness partygoers have already committed to being part of this epic party – and helping consume over 13 million pints of Guinness on March 17th doesn’t sound like it’s too hard to do.

#6 – Corona: 1 million+ Facebook Fans
Corona’s got a new Facebook app called “Beach Break” which is supposed to engage users in online challenges allowing you to earn points which can then be redeemed for Corona bric-a-brac. (Who hasn’t ALWAYS wanted that Corona retractable pen?) Here’s the thing: you better be sober when trying to figure “Beach Break” out because this is the most complicated Facebook app we’ve ever seen – and trust us, we’ve seen them all. Who knew kicking back a cold one on the sand required a degree in programming?

#5 – Coors Light: 1.3 million+ Facebook Fans
For beer drinkers who love to drink but hate the taste of beer – there’s always Coors Light. Unfortunately, just like the taste of their product, the Coors Light Facebook presence lacks some serious flavor. The “Fan Photo of the Week” post is about as original as it gets around here. But hey, 1.2 million Fans are apparently cool with that.

#4 – Budweiser: 1.7 million+ Facebook Fans
Budweiser’s “Birthday Buds” app wants to help you throw your friend his 22nd birthday party. This clever new app searches through your friends list for people who are about to turn twenty-two, then invites you to select the one you want to throw a shindig for. Budweiser then sends that friend a post on their Facebook Wall giving them the chance to claim a $25 prepaid Budweiser card. To which we say: PREPAID BUDWEISER CARDS?! Why have these been kept from us?

#3 – Bud Light: 2.5 million+ Facebook Fans
Bud Light’s Facebook is sports promo central! Like Basketball? Perfect – enter to win a March Madness sweepstakes. Football? No problem – win a trip to the NFL draft. UFC? You got it – enter monthly for a chance to fly to Vegas to see a fight. But don’t assume this crowd is only about counting down to game time. Just click over to the “Bud Light Recipes” tab. That’s right. Bud Light Recipes. Where you’ll find a how-to for Gilled Mah-Mahi Tacos. Don’t forget the “three sprigs of baby arugula.”

#2 – Skol: 3.5 million+ Facebook Fans
Skol might just be the biggest beer you’ve never heard of. But if you’d like to learn all about them from, say, their founding in 1964, just check out their Facebook page. Skol is the first one of our top global brands that’s already embraced the new Facebook Timeline – a feature that will be forced on all brands coming March 30. (And, no, you’re not already drunk. That timeline? Yep, it’s in Portuguese. Skol is Brazil’s biggest beer.)

#1 – Heineken: 6 million+ Facebook Fans
There’s a reason why this family-owned Dutch brewery is far and away the dominant beer brand on Facebook – and it’s only partly about the beer. Decades of savvy marketing have built Heineken into a global behemoth – which is why, of the many enjoyable apps on display at Heineken’s Facebook page, there’s a very simple one that speaks to their truly international scope. “The Sunrise” is an inspired, elegant little app that invites users all over the world to tweet a picture of the sunrise from their corner of the globe. Complete with an interactive map with clickable tags submitted from users across the continents, it encourages users to “celebrate with the world.”

Which is exactly what we’ll be doing this Saturday as we raise a glass to St. Patrick, to Social Media – and, of course, to beer! If you played along to this article, you should’ve taken 31 swigs for every time “Facebook” showed up – wait make that 32 for that last “Facebook.” Now 33.

For more on the performance of beer brands in social media, check out the Beer Zone on Track Social.

When sharing and Retweeting this article, please be sure to include what your #FavoriteBeer is! 

If there’s a Holy Grail for Twitter users, most people think it means racking up more followers than Lady Gaga. To which we say, good luck with that.

So if you can’t attract a Gaga-sized followership as a business, how can you amplify your Twitter exposure?

Retweets.

The Value of a Retweet

Savvy consumers are often wary of brands spamming across the social media platforms. But they’re increasingly open to receiving content from people they know. That’s why Retweeting – in which a Twitter follower forwards someone else’s Tweet to his or her own set of Twitter followers – is so potentially valuable for brands.

It is also valuable because your Tweet can get Retweeted by one of your followers, then any of their followers can Retweet your original Tweet, and so there is the potential for a cavalcade of viral messaging that turns your brand into the next @AngiesRightLeg.

Not only does it mean your content gets self-distributed to an exponentially wider audience, but your messaging is being delivered to consumers by people they trust, making them significantly more likely to engage with content.

The concept of sharing is embedded in all social networks, and much of the internet, however in Twitter it is far more implicit to the very concept of the platform.

Who’s Getting Retweeted?

Track Social has dug deep into its Twitter analytics to find out just which Twitter accounts see the most Retweet action per day.  Lo and behold the Retweet Leaderboard:

Retweets Per Day For Brands

1. Joyce Meyer Ministries
2. ESPN
3. Joel Osteen Ministries
4. Miami Heat
5. Breaking News
6. NBA
7. CNN Breaking News
8. Los Angeles Lakers
9. Chicago Bulls
10. BBC Breaking News

At First Glance: Sports dominate this leaderboard.

[Note: Track Social tracks Brands only, not individuals. For more Track Social Leaderboards go here]

Twitter is all about spreading the latest news, fast.  That’s why Twitter’s up-to-the-minute headline stream is the perfect medium for sports and news. No surprise then that of our top ten (non-celebrity) brands on Twitter, five were sports-related, and ESPN, the leading sports news cable network, came in at number two.

Play-by-Play

Engaging with media-addicted sports fans is perfectly suited to Twitter’s format. Besides offering an instant portal to ESPN content through headline links, photos and video posts, ESPN makes sure to generate fan interaction – and get the Retweets flowing – by regularly asking followers to jump into the conversation. Not such a difficult task given that participation is written into sports fans’ DNA.

ESPN’s Tweets run the gamut from the sublime: “He’s 5’9 and DUNKS over anything” to, yes, the ridiculous: “What would make for the best #OfficeCombine drill? Reply with the hashtag #OfficeCombine. We’ll RT (retweet) our favorites.”

Keeping fans close to the action – with scores, plays, trades, and highlights – is what Twitter does best. NBA team Miami Heat came it at number 4 while the Chicago Bulls showed up at number 9. Both teams post upwards of 15-25 posts per day and load them up with pictures and player videos: “Joakim Noah dunks to record his 1st career triple double http://bit.ly/btvpotw.”

Extra! Extra! Tweet All About It!

In just the past few years, Twitter has stolen the thunder from radio stations and television news broadcasters to become everyone’s primary go-to place for the most current events. Where do you think most people found out about Whitney Houston’s death?  That’s right – Twitter. Three news organizations on the Leaderboard – Breaking News (an aggregate of many different news feed sources), CNN, and BBC Breaking News rank in at numbers 5, 7, and 10 respectively. These sources tend to rely more on the content of the stories themselves to motivate Retweeting, allowing followers to share with their followers, and more often than not, allowing these Tweets to become trending topics.

Lady Gaga, meet Joyce Meyer

But perhaps the most surprising entry in our top ten comes in at number one: Joyce Meyer Ministries is the evangelical preaching and publishing organization of Fenton, Missouri-based preacher Joyce Meyer.

Catering to a largely female following, the posts (about four to six per day) range from cautionary wisdom: “The sooner you learn that feelings are fickle, the better off you’ll be” to motivational exhortation: “If you’re too busy for God then it’s time to change your schedule.” They also include the occasional Bible verse and update on where Joyce will be appearing next.

Given the lack of proprietary content coming through her feed (there’s nothing particularly exclusive about the Psalms), the success of Meyers’ Twitter strategy tells us something about the attraction of social media platforms like Twitter. The real power of this technology is to allow a personality (who would otherwise never be able to engage with one of “the masses”) to speak directly into a person’s daily life.

And that should tell us something about the power of social media platforms like Twitter to erase the distance between “us” and “them.” We’re increasingly comfortable with, and, indeed, increasingly demand a level of personalized interaction. Not just from our preachers, or our celebrities, but from our brands as well. Because the goal of all this technology really is to connect – not just to ideas or entertainment or “content” but to other people – in a meaningful way.

Make the connection – and the Retweets will follow.