FT ComMetrics Blog Index 2009

Just a few years ago, companies had hardly considered blogs as a viable option for corporate communication. Today, they are getting ever more attention. Some of it has been applied in the last six months.

This is the latest version of the FT ComMetrics Blog Index - FTCBI - we update it regularly. If you wish to have a look at the FTCBI that was published in the Financial Times please visit:

FT ComMetrics Blog Index - 2009-05-14

Rank	Company
1	Yahoo!	100	8	0	0
1	Google	100	8	0	0
1	Adobe	100	8	0	0
4	Viacom	88	7	0	0
4	Microsoft	88	7	0	0
4	Amazon	88	7	0	0
7	Toyota	76	6	7208	184
7	E.ON	76	6	37	0
7	General Electric	76	6	0	0
7	Coca-Cola	76	6	0	0
7	InBev	76	6	0	0
7	Aviva	76	6	0	0
7	Arcelor Mittal	76	6	0	0
7	Alcoa	76	6	0	0
7	Hewlett Packard	76	6	0	0
7	Nokia	76	6	0	0
7	Fedex	76	6	0	0
7	Berkshire Hathaway	76	6	0	0
7	Boeing	76	6	0	0
7	American Express	76	6	0	0
7	Intel	76	6	0	0
7	Wells Fargo	76	6	0	0
23	Time-Warner	64	5	22048	324
24	Wal-Mart	63	5	1135	147
24	Henkel	63	5	226	19
24	Royal Bank of Canada	63	5	32	4
24	Accenture	63	5	0	0
24	BNP Paribas	63	5	0	0
24	General Motors - Adam Opel GmbH	63	5	0	0
24	Dell Inc.	63	5	0	0
24	Ericsson	63	5	0	0
24	BT	63	5	0	0
24	Swisscom	63	5	0	0
24	Verizon Communications	63	5	0	0
24	News Corporation	63	5	0	0
24	Nike	63	5	0	0
24	EMC	63	5	0	0
24	Orange Business Services - France Telecom	63	5	0	0
24	BASF	63	5	0	0
24	Daimler	63	5	0	0
41	Telia Sonera	51	4	0	0
41	Petro Canada - Suncor Energy Inc.	51	4	0	0
41	Emerson Electric	51	4	0	0
41	Yoplait - General Mills	51	4	0	0
41	Thomson Reuters - Tom Glocer	51	4	0	0
41	Oracle	51	4	0	0
41	Siemens	51	4	0	0
41	AOL	51	4	0	0
41	Bank of America	51	4	0	0
41	Telstra	51	4	0	0
41	eBay	51	4	0	0
41	Chevron	51	4	0	0
41	Kraft Foods	51	4	0	0
41	Nestl�	51	4	0	0
41	Nissan	51	4	0	0
41	Deutsche Telekom	51	4	0	0
57	ING	38	3	1402	35
58	Sygenta Inc.	37	3	35	0
58	Samsung	37	3	0	0
58	Deutsche Bank	37	3	0	0
58	British Gas owner Centrica	37	3	0	0
58	ABB	37	3	0	0
63	Novo Nordisk	24	2	74	3
63	Unilever	24	2	40	0
63	Royal/Dutch Shell	24	2	0	0
66	GlaxoSmithKline	0	0	108	13
66	SAP	0	0	6	0
66	Volvo AB	0	0	2	0
66	IBM	0	0	0	0
66	Johnson Controls	0	0	0	0
66	UPS	0	0	0	0
66	BBVA	0	0	0	0
66	McDonald's	0	0	0	0
66	Telenor Group	0	0	0	0
66	Renault	0	0	0	0
66	Sony	0	0	0	0
66	Motorola	0	0	0	0
66	Procter & Gamble	0	0	0	0
66	Cisco	0	0	0	0

Note. Some of the calculations used in this table draw upon publicly available information that has not been independently investigated by ComMetrics - a division of CyTRAP Labs GmbH. Other data were independently investigated and collected by ComMetrics. Rankings do not represent a guarantee of future performance for blogs.
In the case of several blogs from one company (e.g., Daimler, Dell, Google, Oracle and Wal-Mart), the highest ranking one is included in this list.Check out more about the methodology used and composite indices applied.
Blogs that require registration to gain access are NOT included in this list because gated communities do not follow the Internet's philosophy of making information freely and easily available to the public.
Methododology.
The FT ComMetrics Blog Index ranks the effectiveness of the corporate blogs of the top 75 companies from the US, Europe and the rest of the world listed on the FT Global 500 2008.
To create the table, the highest-scoring corporate blog is given a ComMetrics Footprint score of 100, and other scores are recalculated as a percentage in relation to that top score. The corporation with an overall score of 100 is therefore not necessarily top in every category; rather, it has accumulated the highest composite score.
To arrive at a corporation’s rank, we examine the data for each indicator and standardize the value for each about its mean using z-scores. All criteria are then aggregated and re-standardized. The following categories are used in the table of raw data.
● Google PageRank interprets web links and assigns a numerical weighting to each site.
● Technorati Authority analyses the number of links to a blog from other sites.
● Technorati Ranking rates blogs according to authority and popularity.
● Yahoo! InLinks monitors links to a blog.
● Google Blog Search is a search engine for blogs that produces lists of results, the
●ComMetrics Footprint is the rankings we calculate using the above indicators.

What will happen during the current economic downturn? Tough recessionary times would suggest that more emphasis should be placed on this effective communications medium. We'll keep you posted.

P.S. - Some would say that there are no good indicators other than a site's own unique visitor numbers and bounce rate. However, these measures are increasingly inaccurate when attempting to determine the value derived from non revenue-generating activities like blogging. Of course, the indicators and composite indices we provide above may not give you the whole truth and nothing but the truth either.

Thus, data do help demonstrate a trend and while the difference between 90 versus 120 backlinks may be real, it is not necessarily something to worry about. Still, if your backlinks dropped or your competitors' backlinks improved significantly within the last six months, then getting your social media budget approved probably just got more difficult. Unless you can show how this will help to move your blog up in the rankings.