Top most visible brands in the social media

Tech and telecom companies were once again the ones that created the greatest social media buzz this year, according to "Top Social Brands 2010" study from Biz magazine. Vodafone, the second largest telecom carrier in Romania headed by Liliana Solomon, scored the highest in 2010 ranking, being followed by Microsoft and LG.

#1 Vodafone

The telecom carrier with a customer base of 9.6 million subscribers in 2009, has been heavily engaged in promoting its products through social media channels, especially after this fall when the group changed its slogan from "Make the most now" into "Power to you".

Vittorio Colao, the chief executive of the group, said this change of slogan shows Vodafone's focus on mobile internet services.

In Romania, the change of the slogan ("Seize every moment") was succeeded by the launch of mobile internet services and access to social networking sites facebook, Twitter, or Hi5 from mobile phone.

Vodafone has an account on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr, and one of the most successful social media campaigns is "Name a number" and "MyPlan".

The carrier has recently appointed Lee Wilkins as a social media consultant, an entrepreneur with 10-year experience in online.

# Microsoft

The local subsidiary of the world's largest software maker seemed to have done a great job with social media this year. And it should have given the fact that 70% of its marketing spend is steered into online medium, and the remaining 30% in supporting tech magazines, according to Bogdan Tataru, marketing communications manager at Microsoft Romania.

In fall last year, the software maker launched "The New Efficiency" campaign, a series of events aimed at presenting to Microsoft partners and clients equipment security policies, detailed guidelines for efficient infrastructure and database management and assisting them in the installation and use of new programs or products.

The attendance at the meeting is possible both via online registration and offline.The share being 70% online sessions and 30% offline.

The company has an account on Facebook, where in March, the former marketing director of Microsoft Romania made public his resignation.

#3 LG

The subsidiary of the world’s second-largest maker of liquid-crystal-display televisions started to communicate via social media in 2008, and in July last year, the company launched the first large blog campaign for the LCD LH5000 television.

The television stock available at retailers ran low after only three years since the start of the campaign, according to Radu Ionescu, managing director at Kinecto, the interactive ad agency that handles the LG Romania account.

On the other hand, two weeks ago, the television maker tweeted that the first stock of 3D televisions shipped to Romania was sold a day after the launch.

#4 BCR

The IT&C companies are not the only companies in the ranking, but also the giants topping the banking league table like BCR, ING and BRD, the first one earning a respectable fourth spot in "Top Social Brands 2010" list.

If last year, the bank didn't score enough for a top 10 spot, this year's position is attributed to the project "Money School" projects, whereby the bank's managers wished to make consumers more conscious on their personal and household finances.

In this project, Simona Tache (simonatache.ro), Vali Petcu (zoso.ro), Cristian Manafu (manafu.ro), Alexandru Mihaileanu (subiectiv.ro) and Cristian Orgonas (khris.ro). bloggers were involved.

In January, BCR opened a virtual branch on the Second Life platform (in virtual Bucharest).

#5 Orange

Romania's largest telecom operator, Orange is largely focused on online medium for marketing its products, and social media in particular, considering that 20% of France Telecom's revenues, the group that holds Orange Romania, is expected to come from online by the end of 2012.

As of last year, the telecom carrier is organizing a series of events "Orange Online MeetUp", where foreign specialists talk online marketing issues with representatives of the local online industry.

In March this year, Orange became member of IAB Romania, the association of Romanian internet advertising industry.

The carrier invested over €200,000 in the launch of its online store, where the company launches its products and only after releases it in the classic stores.

Brands rounding up the top 20

6. ING

7. Petrom

8. Romtelecom

9. Ursus Breweries

10. BMW

11. BitDefender

12. Nokia

13. HTC

14. Kaspersky

15. Dacia

16. Samsung

17. BRD

18. Dove

19. Toshiba

20. Cosmote