This Week's Social Media Power Rankings

There's a summer theme on the social media ranks with companies like Daimler and Volvo taking their new models out for test drives and road trips, while Carnival Cruises and some German company (we'll explain later) banked on your summer vacations.

The social media sphere is an increasingly noisy place, especially for brands. But hiding somewhere in the static are strong signals from companies reaching their customers in innovative ways. The Social Business Index from Dachis Group provides a (free) real-time ranking of more than 30,000 global brands based on their social performance. Every week we're taking a tally of who's getting heard, what they're saying, and why it matters.

Oh, how the mighty Facebook has fallen.  They were doing so well, but it looks like the ironic social media fallout over the premier social media company has begun. The other big mover here seems to be Time Warner, which took advantage of Zuckerberg's IPO flop.  Let's take a look at things outside the top 20:

There are companies you expect to benefit from a summer vacation bump. Carnival would be one of them (amusement parks, beer, and beach things would probably round out our top guesses). The cruise company took advantage of this and actually introduced a new flagship ship: the Carnival Breeze. The Dachis Group's Charles Lim explains:

Carnival was not shy about talking about the Breeze, as a full 16 of 17 posts during the past week on their Carnival Cruise Lines Facebook page comprised of content related to the launch of the Breeze.  This contributed to a 5 point increase in their Social Business Index ranking, surging to 95 overall.  

Who knew people get excited about ships? (We fully acknowledge that those boat aficionados are probably saying the same thing about wonks who care about social media reach.)

Daimler can thank one thing for its 15-spot jump this week: car porn. Hey, we totally get it. Some people click on food, some people click on fashion, so why not cars?  "Their move can largely be attributed to social engagement around the new Mercedes-Benz Concept Style Coupe," the Dachis Group's Ahmed Khamash told us. "After announcing the concept car a couple months ago, Mercedes took to Facebook to showcase photos of the car. Since then, the photo album has received over 100,000 Likes and 20,000 shares from rabid Mercedes fans and auto enthusiasts."

If you aren't quite familiar with Maxingvest AG, rest assured that we weren't, either.  But it turns out they actually hold an indirect interest in the company which owns Nivea, Dachis's Lim tells us. And they've parlayed Nivea's global, social media momentum in pushing its summer products (lip balms, sunscreens, lotions, etc.) into moving up the charts. Think 40 pages, some 5 million fans, and posts like these with a relatively simple question and a massive response.

Volvo probably wins this week's "I'd totally click on that" social media experiment.  "During May, the auto brand showcased their latest model, the V60 Plug-in hybrid, with an 8-city European tour," explains Khamash. "Along the way, Volvo used Facebook to post a select set of photos from each stop, giving fans a feel for each city, the cars, and the events themselves."  From the looks of it, it's actually a lot cooler than just asking people what their favorite Volvo model is, and it's way more organic than standard promotional shots. And with 1,422 likes (and counting) on Facebook--people seem to agree.

Methodology: A project of the Dachis Group, a social business professional services group, the Social Business Index analyzes the conversations on social platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and others. The index, which currently covers approximately 25,0000 companies and 27,000 brands, detects behaviors and activities exhibited by these companies and analyzes their execution and effectiveness at driving outcomes such as brand awareness, brand love, mind share, and advocacy. The Atlantic Wire takes a snapshot of the rankings at the end of the day on Sundays