PostRank Insight

Industry Trends and Analysis

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Which press releases received the most social media coverage?

PostRank benchmarked the press releases of eight wire services: Business Wire, Cisionwire, CNW Newswire, CSRwire, Marketwire, PR Newswire, PRWeb.com, and Wire Service Canada - for January 2011.

Below are the top five performing press releases for each wire service, accompanied by their engagement scores in parentheses in descending order. The higher the engagement score, the more frequently the press release was shared in social media.

Business Wire 

 Intel finds Sandy Bridge chipset design flaw, shipments stopped (14623)

IKEA becomes the first major retailer to stop selling incandescent light bulbs (9363)

Amazon celebrates its first ‘$10 billion quarter’ in sales, finds Kindle books overtaking paperbacks (3442)

RightNow Acquires Natural Language Search Company Q-go For $34 Million (3105)

Apple CEO Steve Jobs Announces Medical Leave of Absence (2944)

Cisionwire

 9 More Questions Answered from “SEO 101 for Press Releases” Webinar (191)

The O-Zone Experience at Mandarin Oriental, Bangkok- CisionWire (press release) (37)

BoDog Revamps Online Poker Software-Online Casinos Pro (20)

Access to Patient Care is Negatively Impacted by Section 6001 of Healthcare Reform - CisionWire (press release) (19)

Skanska awarded two healthcare projects in California totaling USD 282 M … - CisionWire (press release) (14)

CNW Newswire 

News from the Newswire January 17, 2011 (27)

News from the Newswire  January 17, 2011 (20)

News from the Newswire January 24, 2011 (10)

News from the Newswire  January 24, 2011 (10)

News from the Newswire  January 31, 2011 (7)

CSRwire

CSRwire Talkback - Held Hostage to the Old Economy: An Absence of Economic Strategy Kills Good Green Jobs (252)

Procter & Gamble Expands Renewable Energy Portfolio - CSR Wire (215)

CSRwire Talkback - CSR and urbanisation: the next gold rush? (176)

CSRwire: Top 10 CSR Research Findings in 2010 (161)

Portfolio 21’s Top 10 Green Investments for 2011 | Solar Feeds  (77)

Marketwire

Nvidia announces Project Denver ARM CPU for the desktop (6661)

Tesla Model S to have 17-inch infotainment console powered by Tegra; BMW using NVIDIA tech too (3201)

TRENDnet TEW-692GR 450Mbps concurrent dual band router, yet another first (1478)

Volacci Announces Search Engine Optimization Services for Drupal 7 (1011)

PM Digital Names Richard Chavez Senior Director of SEO and John Iozzia Vice President of Business Development (322)

PR Newswire

The Toxin So Dangerous - Even CDC Now Warns Against Consumption by Infants (2469)

Dish Network remote access app extends its long arm to Android tablets (2224)

Starz Digital Media Preps for Return of ‘Spartacus’ with New Facebook Social… — ENGLEWOOD, Colo., Jan. 4, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — (1148)

All Things Nurses Emerges as the Fastest Growing Social Media Community for (875)

Facebook Officially Announces Funding (779)

PRWeb

Dating Factory Adds Eddy Ankrett to the Team (238)

BlueCava Forms Advisory Board of Industry Executives to Expand Industry Reach in Privacy, E-Commerce, Mobile Payments … (81)

Panstoria Introduces Artisan 4.0 for Easy Digital Scrapbooking (41)

Social Networking Tool - Eight Tips on Choosing an Effective Domain Name (35)

Funeral Homes Face Competition from Third Party Company (35)

Wire Service Canada*

MAGNETIC SPONSORING - Attraction Marketing Made Easy For Any MLM or Direct Sales Company :: Wire Service Canada (784)

WEIGHT LOSS BREAKTHROUGH: Lost up to 100 Pounds in 90 Days WITHOUT Dieting - Wire Service Canada (press release) (10)

*PostRank has registered only two press releases shared in social media.

PostRank method

PostRank has developed and implemented a new way of measuring social media. Tracking unique URLs for pieces of web content, PostRank ranks them by the number of comments, tweets, bookmarks, etc. PostRank delivers this data combined with traffic analysis, making it an exhaustive source of information for understanding how social media audiences engage with web content.

If you notice a company name not included in the rankings that should be there, please let us know.

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Which PR wire services are most often referenced in social media?

PostRank has discovered and implemented a new way of measuring social media. Tracking unique URLs for pieces of web content, PostRank ranks them by the number of comments they receive, the number of times they are shared on Twitter, bookmarked on Delicious or Reddit, linked to by bloggers, and much more.

PostRank delivers this data combined with traffic analysis, making it an exhaustive source of information for understanding how social media audiences engage with web content.

PostRank has applied this analysis to benchmarking PR wire services for the month of January 2011.

PostRank engagement score and number of social engagement events across social media hubs for PR wire services:

  If you notice a company name not included in the rankings that should be there, please let us know.

How do we do it?

The core of the PostRank scoring system involves two concepts: Social Media Engagement and Social Engagement Events.

The Social Media Engagement score defines the level of attention social media users pay to your website, blog, or any other type of content available online. This score is a complex measurement of a series of Social Engagement Events.

Social engagement events are individual activities performed by social media users on specific social networks. PostRank distinguishes among five types of events: Creating, Critiquing, Chatting, Collecting and Clicking, which differ in degree of effort, meaning, or importance. Each event is assigned a certain numerical value according to the type of events PostRank has registered.

Names/companies/organizations mentioned in this post: prnewswire.com, prweb.com, marketwire.com, newswire.ca, businesswire.com, cisionwire.com, wireservice.ca

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How often are online travel agencies referenced in the social media?

Using the PostRank’s Social Media Analysis tool, we measured two media characteristics: frequency of content sharing in social media and weights of social media hub where the events took place.

Of the 20 websites examined worldwide, Orbitz, Priceline, Hotels.com, Expedia, and Sabre made it into the top 5. Among them, Orbitz and Priceline are the top 2 with the highest number of social engagement events and highest engagement scores. The matrix below summarizes the findings for the Top 5 online travel agencies in January 2011.

Twofold PostRank Matrix: Events (number of times an article was shared in social media) in relation to Engagement Score (weight of these events).

The distribution of events in social media for the 20 online travel agencies in January 2011 is in the table below. Twitter, Delicious, and Facebook dominate the list with the largest quantity of content sharing.

Distribution of content sharing registered by PostRank: Number of engagement events by specific social media hub for the 20 online travel agencies.

Names/companies/organizations mentioned in this post: Orbitz Worldwide, Inc., Priceline.com Incorporated, Hotels.com L.P, Expedia, Inc., Sabre Holdings, CheapOair, WK Travel, Inc., HomeAway, Inc., VEGAS.com, LLC, Ascent Pacific, BookIt.com, Inc, American Automobile Association (AAA), Huntington Press, Luxury Link, LLC, Universal Orlando Resort, LowFares.com, Inc., Lexyl Travel Technologies Inc, Tablet Inc, Five Star Alliance, Airtrade International Inc. 

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How big are the ‘Big Five’ Canadian Banks in social media?

“The banking world needs to look outside the financial world and see what other industries are doing to leverage social media”. [http://banknerd.ca]

PostRank measured the social media presence of the "Big Five" Canadian banks using its unique technology. We counted the number of social web mentions that contained a link to the banks' websites (we call such instances social engagement "events").

We added some depth to the measurements by weighting social engagement events according to PostRank's scoring system. For more information on the PostRank methodology and sources, visit: PostRank Engagement and PostRank Engagement Sources.

The results of the study, in the table below, show how big the Big Five Canadian banks are in social media.

It is interesting to note that, in December and January, all the banks combined had 944 social engagement events (i.e. links to the banks' websites). On the scale of the social web, this number is not that big. Popular companies often generate tens of thousands of social engagement events monthly.

PostRank will continue to measure the presence of the banks on the social web. Look for monthly updates to see who is on top.

The Big Five Banks: RBC (Royal Bank of Canada), TD Bank Financial Group , Scotia Bank, CIBC, BMO (Bank of Montreal)

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Newspapers in Social Media

The transition for traditional newspapers to online publication and promotion has been a challenging task. Additionally, social media has become a necessary tool set for newspapers to promote and keep people engaged with their content.

Print Measurement Bureau of Canada says: “Online networkers are … committed consumers of the so-called “traditional media”… Social media networkers, for instance, are twice as likely to visit online magazine websites. They are also 50% more likely to access daily newspapers, television and radio online”. [www.pmb.ca]

We thought it would be interesting to take a look at four Canadian newspapers and examine how much engagement they receive across a subset of the social metrics we track. The newspapers include: The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, National Post, and Toronto Sun.   The table below highlights the number of engagement events where a link to one of the aforementioned newspapers' websites was shared on a social hub. In order to understand where the content is being shared most actively, the number of events for each social media outlet is also provided.   The January 2011 numbers for the four major Canadian newspapers were:

The Globe and Mail led by a large margin in terms of the total number of events associated with its website. The Toronto Star performed well relative to the group, but did not lead in any specific category.   National Post received proportionally more activity on Digg and with trackbacks than the Toronto Sun, but the difference between them in overall engagement is minimal.

PostRank will continue to measure the presence of newspapers in social media. Look for monthly updates to see who is on top.   For more information on the PostRank methodology and sources visit: PostRank Engagement and PostRank Engagement Sources.

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How much online content is produced and shared about automakers? How often are their websites referenced on the social web?

How effective are the world’s leading auto manufacturers (from the list of Top 20 best selling vehicles) at promoting their brands using social media? Using the PostRank’s Social Media Analysis tool, we measured three media characteristics: volume of content, frequency of content sharing, and number of times a website was linked. We then compiled these measurements into a threefold matrix. The matrix explicates the level of engagement of 8 leading auto manufacturers on the social web during January 2011. 

Of the 8 auto manufacturers examined worldwide, Toyota and Honda drew the most social media sharing engagement, as well as the most overall online media coverage. At the same time, GM, Toyota, and Ford websites had the highest linking rate during January 2011.

For the the complete Automotive Industry report please vist PostRank Industry Reports. 

The top 10 articles shared in January 2011 are listed in the table below. Toyota Prius and Ford Focus dominate the list, with articles about the Toyota Prius shared most often.

The PostRank engagement weighted score is a complex measure combining number of links found in social media together with the weight of the social media outlet. For more information on the PostRank methodology and sources visit:PostRank Engagement and PostRank Engagement Sources

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What social web coverage did Canadian political leaders receive in January 2011?

What news about Canadian political leaders from traditional media sources was shared most often on the social web in January? Using PostRank's analytical tools, we measured how frequently political news appeared in social engagement activities by compiling lists of the most popular articles about leaders of Canada's four major political parties.

The tables below illustrate what mainstream news on politicians found an audience on the social web. Additionally, readers can see where on the social web political news has found an audience.

Politicians mentioned in this post: Stephen Harper, Michael Ignatieff, Jack Layton, Gilles Duceppe.

The PostRank engagement weighted score is a complex measurement combining number of links found on the social web with the weight of the social media outlet. For more information on the PostRank methodology and sources, visit: PostRank Engagement and PostRank Engagement Sources.

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Which Thomson Reuters websites are popular on the social web?

The Wall Street Journal reported recently that: “Thomson Reuters Corp.'s profit surged 27% absent large finance costs a year earlier as revenue edged up thanks to growth in the professional division”. [http://online.wsj.com/]

PostRank, using its unique technology, decided to look into what Thomson Reuters websites are most popular on the social web. We assumed that Thomson Reuters services, as a rule, are tied to specific domains. So we counted how many times each domain was mentioned on social media sites (we call each of these instances an ”event”). To add a qualitative dimension to the measurements we assigned weights to social media events, according to the weights of social media outlets.

Here is what we found out. Below are the top 20 Thomson Reuters domains on the social web.

Domains/products mentioned in the table: findlaw.com, trust.org, thomsonreuters.com, pointcarbon.com, carswell.com, endnote.com, sciencewatch.com, alertnet.org, contactlaw.co.uk, west.thomson.com, superlawyers.com, opencalais.com, tradeweb.com, elite.com, researcherid.com, 100tophospitals.com, delphion.com, community.thomsonreuters.com, hubbardone.com

The PostRank engagement weighted score is a complex measure combining number of links found in social media together with the weight of the social media outlet. For more information on the PostRank methodology and sources visit:PostRank Engagement and PostRank Engagement Sources