Synthesio, Global Social Media Monitoring

Keeping in-line with China Social Media Listening Month, we decided to use our Synthesio Influence Ranking system to check out which celebrities from around the world are most influential in China. We SynthesioRanked each celebrity on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list, which is based on entertainment-related earnings and media visibility. Our Synthesio ranking calculation tracks all mentions of each celebrity on the list throughout Chinese social media. Some of the results are pretty surprising.

Lebron James takes the lead at the #1 most influential celebrity in Chinese social media – we had to double check this one just to be sure. Clearly, he’s an amazing athlete with a massive fan base, he’s hosted the EPSY’s and SNL, and he was the first  African American man to appear on the cover of Vogue;  but LeBron James is more influential in Chinese social media than Justin Bieber or even Rihanna? Something didn’t quite add up. However, upon closer inspection, it was clear that Lebron James loves China just as much as China loves him – In the Fall, he embarked on his 9th trip to China, and he’s active on Sina Weibo (China’s Twitter), with almost 1 million followers.

LeBron James isn’t the only NBA star creating a buzz across the the Chinese social media space – Kobe Bryant ranks #8. After setting up a Sina Weibo account just last month, he had over 100,000 followers within a few hours. He started his account just a few days after a message appeared on Nike Basketball’s Sina Weibo account, on Chinese New Year’s Day: “Hey it’s Kobe, I’ve decided to take over Nike basketball’s Weibo handle for a few days and I wanted to wish you all a Happy New Year.”

It’s not a shocking that social media savvy global superstars Rihanna, Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga are top social media influencers anywhere in the world, including China – However, Brad Pitt, who the US loves dearly, isn’t quite topping the social media charts in the Western world, but has a significant social presence in China at #9 on our list. Brad Pitt is actually banned from China after his starring role in the 1997 movie Seven Years in Tibet, which was deemed by authorities in Beijing to have been too sympathetic to the exiled Dalai Lama. But that hasn’t curbed his influence in Chinese social media. Moments after starting a Sina Weibo account last month, he posted “It is the truth. Yup, I’m coming…” Within two hours, Pitt’s post had 8,000 comments and 20,000 reposts, and gained 73,000 fans.

 So, the moral of the story here is.. Celebrities and global brands alike – get a Sina Weibo account. The most populous country in the world wants to hear what you have to say.

Check out Mashable’s take on our infographic in their recent post, Top 25 Most Popular Celebrities on Chinese Social Media.

Here’s our full SynthesioRanked List of the most influential Global celebrities in Chinese social media:

What do you think of think of the results? Any surprises here? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

Influence Ranking System

SynthesioRank’s various calculations include relevant influence as well as taking into account how many on-topic mentions have been posted on a given site, or mentioned by a given user.

Internet Week NY 2012 has come to an end, but with approximately 200 city-wide events in NYC, and 20,000 tweets throughout the week, it’s definitely left its mark on the digital community of NY and beyond. In fact, this year’s event has generated nearly double the Twitter buzz as compared to last year, a testament not only to the growing magnitude of the event, but surely the exciting speakers, activities and content of the sessions as well.

Some trending topics being tweeted during the event include Digital, Party, Future, Excited and Love, which further illustrate the positive and stimulating discourse taking place throughout the city. The conversation peaked at an impressive level of 5,000 tweets on the second day of the event, undoubtedly due in part to engaging events like the OMMA Social and Keynote speaking from The New York Times’ David Carr & Brian Stelter who took the stage with Chairman of Internet Week NY, David-Michel Davies.

Last week, we posted the Internet Week Halftime Report announcing the trends and influencers at the halfway point, but now the time has come to share the final results. What were the trending topics on people’s mind? Who were the most buzz-generating keynote speakers, and of course, who ultimately made it to the top of the Internet Week 2012 influencers list? Click on the Post Game Report below to find out!

Since 2008, Internet Week has been a rapidly-growing city-wide festival celebrating the openness of the worldwide web and the digital community in New York, bringing the brightest minds and largest brands together to discuss their innovations, thoughts, opinions and best practices around the ever-changing digital landscape in New York and beyond.

This year’s event kicked off this past Monday with an explosive start including keynotes, panels, parties and networking events, with speakers including David-Michel Davies, Chairman, Internet Week NY & Executive Director, IADAS, Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of NY, Pete Cashmore, Founder & CEO of Mashable, David Karp, Founder & CEO of Tumblr, and even Billy Beane, General Manager of the Oakland Athletics, whose baseball career was the inspiration behind the recent Brad Pitt movie, Moneyball.

At Synthesio, we relish the opportunity to dig deeper into the public conversations surrounding an event of this magnitude, so we decided to take a sip from our Twitter Firehose and track all Twitter conversations surrounding this year’s Internet Week, to provide the public with engaging insights into the overall online reach of the event, trending topics, and lastly, what has become somewhat of a tradition here at Synthesio, the lists of top influencers driving the conversations.

So now it’s halftime, and once again, we invite you to stand up, stretch, grab a drink, and enjoy the Synthesio IWNY Halftime Report Infographic. Congrats to the top influencers, and don’t forget to check back next week for the Post-Game Analysis!

Click the image below to view it in full size.

Another half year passes, another Social Media Week comes and goes! From Hamburg to Hong Kong; Sao Paulo to Singapore; Tokyo to Toronto; the week went by for all of us in a whirlwind of discussion, discourse and debate on the social media zeitgeist. And this time round, more people joined the conversation on Twitter than ever – to the tune of a 270% increase on last year’s event! With a theme of Empowering Change Through Collaboration, people gathered at over 1000 events worldwide to discuss how the present and future of social media will have an impact on our everyday and working lives.

We monitored Twitter buzz for all Social Media Week locations, starting on the 9th February and finishing on the 19th, in order to capture the build-up and the aftermath as well as the week’s noise. Following on from last week’s infographic – where amongst other things we showcased the top global influencers (as determined by our proprietary SynthesioRank influence ranking system) – we present you the full report! As always, congratulations to the top influencers on our list; it was a close fought race between some big names!

Enjoy our Social Media Week infographic below – click the image to view it in full.

Yes it’s that time again! Social Media Week 2012 launched this past Monday, 2/13, and is now in full effect worldwide. Now in its fourth year, and currently being hosted within 12 cities across the globe including Hamburg, Hong Kong, London, Miami, New York, Paris, San Francisco, Sau Paulo, Singapore, Tokyo, Toronto and Washington DC – Social Media Week has become one of the largest recurring global conferences around, with some of the brightest minds convening to discuss the latest trends and innovations concerning social media, as well as its impact on our society, both professional and personal.

According to SocialMediaWeek.org: “Annually, SMW attracts more than 60,000 attendees across thousands of individually organized events, with half a million connecting to the conference online and through mobile.” This year’s event is estimated to be the largest yet with over 1,000 events across the 12 global cities, and now has a unifying theme – Empowering Change Through Collaboration.

At Synthesio, we focus on global social media monitoring & engagement, so naturally we couldn’t pass up an opportunity to analyze an event of this magnitude. We’re tracking all Twitter conversations pertaining to the event worldwide, and will be contributing our part to the conversation with insightful infographics, displaying the impact of the event online, and praising the top influencers driving the conversation. We also happen to be sponsoring and attending one of the #SMWnyc events called the Social Media Action Camp (#SMWsmac), so stop by and say hi if you’re in the area!

So now it’s halftime, and once again we invite you to stand up, stretch, take a break and enjoy our latest SMW report! Congrats to the top influencers, and don’t forget to check in next week for our Post-Game Analysis as well!

To mark the launch of the Versace for H&M Collection, Synthesio monitored and analyzed online comments pertaining to the two brands between November 1st and 19th.

An International Reputation

The partnership between the Swedish and Italian brands has generated considerable buzz, especially on Twitter, the social media of choice for fans of both brands (85% of online comments). The event received international coverage. The United States, the United Kingdom and Spain are the three countries with the highest levels of online reaction to the event.

Two Major Events

The collection launch parade in New York on November 8th and the products becoming available for sale in 800 stores worldwide on November 17th were followed closely and commented on by consumers online.

Versace Gaining Visibility But H&M is the Center of Attention

Versace is leveraging the campaign well to dramatically increase their visibility on the Internet. The day after the parade, the Italian brand was even more quoted than H&M: nearly 24,000 comments were noted. H&M, however, remains at the heart of online consumer discussions with an average of over 13,000 reviews posted daily.