December 9th, 2014, Ted Marzilli
Facebook may have an outsized lead in current site visitors over its rivals, but competitors such as YouTube, Yahoo, Pinterest and Google+ have as strong, and in some cases stronger scores on key brand metrics.
WhatsApp, which Facebook acquired earlier this year, has shown the biggest improvement in consumer recommendations to friends and family over the past six months.
Two other brands to keep an eye on: Pinterest and Google+. They both notched the largest gains in general impression scores with consumers while taking the second biggest jumps in recommendation scores.
Twitter also made modest positive moves over the past six months.
In much the same way Facebook leads social media sites in sheer current customer metrics alone, YouTube is the singular leader in both consumer recommendation and general impression scores.
Yahoo comes in a distant second place from YouTube in these two metrics, slightly ahead of Facebook in recommendation and a wider lead in general impression. Over the past six months, Yahoo’s movement in these scores were negligible, but still remained strong enough to place it high in the social media field.
Just behind Yahoo is a virtual three-way tie between Facebook, Pinterest and Google+. These last two brands have made the strongest gains in Impression scores.
The major social media sites were measured with three of YouGov BrandIndex’s metrics: General Impression ("Do you have a general positive feeling about the brand?"), Willingness to Recommend ("Would you recommend the brand to a friend or family member?"), and Current Customer (“Have you visited the website in the the past 30 days?”). All respondents are adults age 18 and over.
Social media sites: Impression v Recommend
Social media sites change in scores over last 6 months: Impression v Recommend
