The Social Media 50

• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn

In research conducted from late January to mid-February, our staff monitored the two leading social-media channels for restaurants right now, Twitter and Facebook, counting followers and fans, how often consumers discussed the brand and the efforts of operators to foster that give-and-take.

The data was tallied and weighted to reflect its relative value. For instance, a mention of the brand on Twitter—an @mention, in Twitter-ese—counted 10 times as much as a tweet by the operator itself. Facebook wall posts by the public similarly counted as 10 points.

The result was a Social Media Index for each operation identified by our staff or sites like WeFollow.com as a likely social networking frontrunner. Presented here is the Social Media 50, the 50 operators with the highest scores. A glimpse at the Twitter and Facebook activities of all 115 rated players (AJ Bombers is No. 77), is below. A more detailed explanation of the methodology is on the bottom of the page, along with a calculator to discover your own ranking. - Peter Romeo

* Denotes restaurants added since original posting on April 1, 2011.

Where are you in the pecking order?

Here’s how to compare your social media efforts with the Twitter and Facebook pecking of operators on our ranking. If your index falls within the top 100, we’ll add your operation to the list.

Fill in the blanks with this info:
Twitter followers: The number of people who follow your operation’s official Twitter I.D. The number should be for one account, not several added together.

@mentions: Count the @Mentions—posts mentioning @[your account name]—for the last 24 hours, as recorded under that pull-down feature on your homepage. We have a way of validating your answer, so be honest.

Tweets: Using the Your Tweets pull-down feature on your home page, count how many posts you’ve made in the last 24 hours. Here again, we have checking methods.

Total Twitter score: Multiply your @mentions tally by 10, add that number to your tweet and followers numbers, and you have your total score.

Facebook fans: How many people “like” your operation’s official Facebook page, as indicated on the left-hand column.

Wall postings: How many original wall postings—not comments on postings made by others—have been added to your wall by parties other than yourself within the last 24 hours. DO NOT count your own posts.

Total Facebook score: Multiply the number of wall postings by 10 and add that to the number of Facebook fans.

Social Media Index: Add your Total Twitter score to the Total Facebook score.

If your score falls within the top 100 scores on our ranking, we’ll add it. Send your information to Peter Romeo, promeo@cspnet.com.

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