全球社交網絡排名：當Facebook遇上QQ空間和新浪微博

Based on a global study, BV4's brand experts and their scientific partners at HWZ analyzed the most successful social network brands.
瑞士品牌價值評估機構BV4與技術合作夥伴HWZ近日發佈2012社交媒體品牌調查報告，對2012年最有價值的社交網絡進行了全球範圍的研究。

They examined the qualitative aspects of the brands, i.e. brand strength, and also determined the monetary values of the 50 most valuable social media brands. The 10 most valuable brands were then listed in the ranking.
調查對全球範圍內的社交媒體品牌進行了品牌實力的定性研究，也分析了50個最有價值的社交媒體品牌的貨幣價值。前10位最有價值品牌排名如上圖。

Three well-known brands appear in the top three positions. With an estimated brand value of 29.115 bn $,Facebook clearly leads the ranking, followed by YouTube at 18.099 bn $and Twitter at 13.309 bn $. It is not only the high number of visitors that makes these brands so strong, but also their high level of global awareness and the remarkable user statistics of the platforms. For instance, Facebook has 845 million users; this means that roughly every eighth inhabitant of the planet is registered on the biggest social network.
在這次的排名中，全球知名的社交網絡品牌Facebook、YouTube和Twitter佔據前三位。Facebook以290億美元的預計品牌價值高踞榜首，緊跟其後的是180億美元的YouTube和133億美元的Twitter。使得這些社交媒體品牌實力如此雄厚的不只是驚人的訪問者數量，還有它們高度的全球認知度和龐大的平臺用戶數據。例如，Facebook有8.45億用戶，這就意味着大約全球8個人中，就有1人在這個最大的社交網絡上註冊過。

In addition to the many brands from the USA, there are also some "exotic" social media brands emerging in the ranking, such as the Chinese platform Qzone in fourth position Sina Weibo in fifth position and the two Facebook imitations VKontakte from Russia and Renren from China at positions 11 and 12. These and other social media brands in China and Russia have benefited from a strong increase in the number of Internet users and from the exponentially increasing diffusion rate of the platforms.
除了美國的這些知名品牌，此次的排名中也有很多“外來”社交媒體品牌的身影。中國的QQ空間排名第四位，新浪微博排名第五位。與Facebook類似的兩個社交網絡，俄羅斯最大的社交網站VKontakte和中國的人人網分列11和12名。這些還有榜單上其他來自中國和俄羅斯的社交媒體品牌，很大程度上得益於互聯網用戶的大幅增加，以及成倍增長的平臺擴散速度。

The strength and value of social media brands
社交媒體品牌的實力和價值

The market capitalizations of social networks are often many times higher than their turnovers or their balance sheet totals. This means that investors' purchase decisions not only include future expectations but also the intangible assets of the social networks, whereas brand value represents a considerable part of these assets. For"ordinary" brands (e.g., consumer goods brands), brand value is created as soon as consumers are willing to pay a price premium solely because of the brand of a specific product or service.
社交網絡的市值通常要高出它們的交易額和資產負債總數很多倍。這也就意味着，投資者在做出購買決定時，考慮的不僅僅是對未來收益的期許，還有對社交網絡無形資產的肯定，社交媒體的品牌價值就從很大程度上代表着這些無形資產。對於消費品品牌這樣的“普通”品牌來說，一旦消費者因爲品牌的特定產品或服務願意出超額價格購買商品，那該品牌的價值就能立即實現。

However, it is not necessarily the users of social networks that are the customers in this case, but also the companies that place paid ads on the platforms and benefit from user information. As a consequence, company and brand value is created only when the social networks and their information can be used commercially. In other words, the higher the awareness and the diffusion rate of social media brands and the trust they generate, the stronger and more valuable they are.
然而社交網絡卻不同。對於社交媒體來說，消費者不僅僅有用戶，還有在平臺上放置付費廣告並從用戶信息中獲益的公司。因此，只有當社交網絡和信息用於商業用途時，社交媒體的品牌價值才能實現。換句話說，社交媒體的全球認知度越高，品牌和產生的信任感擴散速度越快，該品牌的實力就越強大越有價值。The unstoppable rise of "exotic" brands
“外來”品牌增長勢頭銳不可擋

"Social media brands from emerging countries like China, Russia or Brazil can be expected to become increasingly significant in the future", states Max Meister, CEO of BV4. On the one hand, numbers of Internet users in these countries are increasing at above-average rates compared to growth in Europe or in the USA. On the other hand, Asian users are significantly more active in social networks. And finally, there is another element with a strong influence on the rapid growth of social networks in China: as various online shopping websites are not very reliable and therefore losing their users' trust, various purchase transactions are being completed on social networks. This fact additionally boosts the number of users and the degree of activity of social platforms in China. However, because of the limited regional language and culture area it can be assumed that these brands will soon reach a saturation point and will therefore not be able to create a global presence.
BV4調查機構的首席執行官Max Meister表示，“社交媒體品牌在新興市場國家中國、俄羅斯和巴西等的發展迅速，未來它們的影響力會有望持續增加。” 一方面，與歐洲或美國相比，這些國家互聯網用戶表現出了超出平均水平的增長勢頭。另一方面，亞洲用戶在社交網絡上的積極程度要明顯高於其他國家和地區。另外在中國，社交網絡增長勢頭如此迅猛還有一個重要的影響因素：由於許多在線購物網站不可靠失去了用戶的信任，開始有越來越多的購買交易在社交網絡上完成。這一事實也使得中國社交平臺的用戶數量增加，參與行爲增多。不過因爲地區性語言和文化的限制，我們可以預測在不久的將來這些品牌就會達到一個飽和狀態，無法創造全球性的存在影響。