A recent comScore report suggests that brand loyalty declines in an economic recession. Obvious. Right? Well, looking at  some interesting social media loyalty metrics, these findings might not be telling the whole story.

Over the past three years, comScore researchers asked consumers if they would buy their favorite brands even should restraints on their income arise. At the end of the 3-year period, well into one of the worst recessions in memory, and they found that 15% of those they were following felt less compelled to stick with their favorite brands if they could find a cheaper substitute.

With this finding in mind, we looked at the big brand’s standing across social media channels, and a different picture emerged. We wanted to know: could a souring economy also dampen the public’s enthusiasm for brand allegiance away from the shopping aisles? So far, the big brands are holding up nicely. For example, Coca-Cola has the 11th highest number of Facebook Likes with an increase of 33,000 in just the past week. Starbucks Coffee, known for its overpriced luxury frappuccinos, is Number 7 overall in Facebook popularity and it’s racking up 93,800 each week as the chart below indicates.

Some of the biggest loyalty losses comScore found were in clothing, food, and over-the-counter medicines, but some of the big brands we looked at from these same categories have only been gaining in popularity. Nyquil, the popular over-the-counter flu medication, has 132,500 Facebook likes total, with hundreds more Liking it every day. Campbell Soup and Abercrombie and Fitch Apparel share the same story (just check out their graphs bellow).

And its not only Facebook. Check out the numbers for Colgate Toothpaste’s Twitter followers:

What does this point to? There’s still a big disconnect between Fan pages metrics and  supermarket sales, apparently. It’s just that social media popularity of brands do not suffer in a down market. The counter is true too. “Likes” do not necessarily correspond to “buys.”

But one thing is for sure: Once the economy picks up again you can be sure a brand’s most loyal Facebook fans won’t abandon them. After all, these brands are now part of their online image, Facebook icon and all, posted effectively on their profile page.

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