A ranking of the City’s most social savvy firms was released this morning and the results may very well surprise you. (They certainly surprised us.) Carnival, the embattled cruise ship line, Burberry, BP, Marks & Spencer and ARM Holdings scored in the top five of the FTSE 100 Social Media Index.

The ranking comes courtesy of digital corporate comms agency The Group who looked at the FTSE 100 Index and scored companies based on their commitment to social media communications. Primarily, they looked at the companies’ presence on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and with blogging.

The two brands that may surprise you the most are BP and Carnival. In the case of the former, the energy giant has really ramped up its social media investment in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon crisis. The report acknowledges BP’s heavy use of YouTube and Facebook and gives it kudos for consistent design across the channels. Carnival is a controversial choice as well. As we noted last month, Carnival is an extremely social savvy marketer, but it has handled poorly the Costa Concordia tragedy with a disjointed crisis outreach effort that is heavy on social, but confusing and inconsistent elsewhere.

Here are some of the interesting insights that come out of the ranking:

• Twitter has become the leading channel for digital corporate communications with more than 1 million people following corporate Twitter accounts, an increase of 418,395 (71%) since June 2011.
• The number of people using Facebook has also risen significantly; up by 4.7 million (25%) over the previous six months to June 2011, to more than 14 million fans overall. However demand for information from Facebook could be outstripping supply, with only 39 FTSE100 companies running an account (up just 2.5% since June).
• There are now 53 FTSE100 companies with an active YouTube channel, up 10% since June and these attracted 34.7 million video views, an increase of 11.6 million.
• The number of FTSE100 blog posts rose by 26% over the period. Although, across the sites hosted by The Group, blogs have proven to be the most engaging social media channel, just 16 FTSE100 companies run an active corporate blog.

Here’s the top ten league table (click to enlarge):

Consumer product company Procter & Gamble (P&G) has launched a new Facebook-driven program to provide clean drinking water to children in developing nations.

For every ‘like’ on its ‘1 Like = 1 Day’ Facebook page, the company will donate a day of clean drinking water to its Children’s Safe Drinking Water (CSDW) scheme. P&G has been pioneering clean water schemes for seven years, and estimates that its patented powdered purification technology has saved 22,000 lives through the purification of 4 billion liters of water.

To raise awareness of the work, the Facebook page features stories, photos and videos related to the efforts of P&G and CSDW, which share a common goal:

“As we work toward our goal to save one life every hour by 2020, we want others to play a part and share in our journey,” P&G chairman, president and CEO Bob McDonald said. “This is one simple, but meaningful way for people all over the world to help us touch and improve lives by sharing clean drinking water.”

Indeed, the campaign – launched on January 25 – has thus far proven successful. Already 5,170 people have ‘liked’ the page, and according to P&G’s Twitter channel, 3,000 of those came in over just two days.

However, the ‘1 Like = 1 Day’ page is entirely standalone from P&G’s regular Facebook page, which has 67,473 likes. Sure, the water campaign was mentioned on the predominant page, but only once. P&G are not shy about using social media, and as such the announcement may well have been lost in the noise of its other news.

P&G’s many other campaigns enjoy their own separate pages as well, but all have a much higher ‘like’ count (P&G myGIVE has over 100k; Thank You, Mom has well over 460k). With users subscribed to one central channel, P&G would do well to shout just a little bit louder to make sure its fans hear about this great cause.

Attracting bright young recruits has been the focus of HR professionals at the world’s largest companies for well over a decade now. It’s been the subject of flashy magazine articles that look at Google’s free lunches and Apple’s compensation plans and the cool factor of working for Facebook (the impending mega IPO there helps). There’s also hope for smaller firms looking to stay competitive in the talent wars: using social media for internal communications.

According to a new study by APCO Worldwide and Gagen MacDonald, employees really, really LIKE employers who have implemented social tools to upgrade their internal comms. So much so that 58% said they would prefer to work for a company that uses ISM (internal social media) and 86% said they would gladly refer others to work for this company as well.

The study mentions that wikis, blogs and Facebook-like platforms are quickly challenging the intranet as the preferred communications platform, continuing a trend that began a few years ago on the enterprise side. One of the most interesting findings of the report is what aspect of ISM is most valued. Quality content – accurate, pertinent and timely information – still rules the day. The second most valued aspect is the feedback/dialogue/collaboration component.

Here’s the rest of the study, presented in infographic form:

This year’s Super Bowl saw five times as much social activity as last year, figures from Trendrr suggest, which is not surprising given research by Coca-Cola showing that at least 60 percent of viewers were expected to have a smart phone, tablet or computer within arm’s reach and that an average of 10,000 Tweets per minute were fired off in game’s final three minutes.

Indisputably one of the biggest TV events of the year, Super Bowl 46 had all the requisite buzz (and then some) as evidenced by the host of social metric infographics doing the rounds. Indeed, at a cost of $3.5 million for a 30 second TV spot, it’s not enough for the ads to simply capture the imaginations of viewers; they’ve got to get them online, too (to be observed, for the first time ever, by the Super Bowl’s very own social media command center).

Coke itself took advantage of this ‘second screen’ media consumption phenomenon by directing viewers to CokePolarBowl.com, which featured the classic Coke polar bears watching and reacting to the game in real time, thanks to live animation technology – a cool novelty that had viewers ramping up brand awareness through increased online chatter.

Other brands stepped up their social media strategies a notch, too, with Doritos, H&M and Chrysler earning big sentiment points, according to brandbowl2012.com. Little surprise that a baby in a catapult, David Beckham in his underwear and a grown-up take on Ferris Bueller’s Day Off hold such widespread appeal.

However, it’s car giant Chevrolet that’s emerged from the fray most victorious discussed. Its Armageddon-inspired commercial was widely regarded as ‘stand out’ by critics, and no doubt caused such a stir because of its fairly controversial dig at rival car maker Ford. Such was the gravity of this ‘dig’ that Ford Motor Co. allegedly wrote to Chevrolet asking that the commercial be pulled, which only served to ignite further interest in the advert, inevitably boosting viewings and, of course, noise online.

Nonetheless, Chevy already had a social media card up its sleeve, in the form of the Chevy Game Time app. After downloading the app onto a phone or tablet (or logging on to chevy.com/gametime), users – connected instantly to other players across the country – answered questions and responded to polls for a chance to win a variety of prizes, from pizzas to the brand new 2012 Chevy.

The app was bigged-up through Chevy’s Facebook page and of course on Twitter, but because it relied on real-time activity it was not promoted as part of the commercial; a bit of a foul, but not an unsportsmanlike offense given the buzz that the brand – intentionally or not – had already generated. And what of Ford? Well, given a tradition for ‘come-back’ adverts – especially in the auto industry – Chevy might do well to behave graciously in its victory.

Back in December we reported that as part of an overall revamp, Twitter would be creating a ‘brand page’ dynamic for the biggest businesses using the micro-blogging service. Initially, 21 major marketers, including Coca-Cola, Nike and Disney, were given the opportunity to take advantage of new features such as expanded headers and featured tweets.

Now, brand pages are rolling out across the globe, allegedly to partners that have already committed to spending at least $25,000 on Twitter’s ad products, including promoted tweets and trends. There are rumours afoot that brand pages are set to evolve further, with the potential addition of ecommerce functionality (already dubbed ‘T-commerce’), and analytics. In the case of the former, the ability to house iFrame environments opens up the possibility of games and purchases taking place without leaving the site. As TheDrum notes, though, these functions will only be worth the while of companies releasing media content frequently enough to show off this channel (but with a $25,000 minimum investment requirement, brands will have no doubt considered this).

The really exciting news for brands and companies is the introduction of embedded analytics. Echoing Facebook’s targeted marketing, Twitter analytics will be help push promoted tweets into the online spaces of relevant and interested parties – something sorely needed to save the reputation of the feature, as evidenced below:

Managing Director of online PR agency Punch, Pete Goold, explains: “The data that seems set to become available in the coming months will add immense value to the Twitter platform, which already facilitates one to one interactions between brands and their audiences on an awareness and customer services level. Being able to track the exact reach and impact of each individual tweet will enable brands to fine-tune their Twitter strategies moving forward.”

Goold adds that the development may also be part of Twitter’s strategy to persuade more brands to invest in the platform from a marketing perspective, “since the pool of information and insights which could be available through Twitter is astronomical”. Indeed, at a keynote interview at All Things D’s media conference in California this week, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo said he is “laser-focused” on building revenue exclusively through advertising.

But the company will need to proceed with caution. Until recently, Twitter had been – in contrast to Facebook – a community space free from the interference of corporations, branding and an obvious use of users’ personal data; Twitter risks irking its user-base if it tries to force messages of advertising upon it.

You might remember this scene from the 2010 Oscar-award winning film “The Social Network.” Four young coders tap away at their laptops, face-off style. Every few seconds, or so it seems, one of the combatants downs a potent shot of cheap booze then resumes tapping away. Around them the cheering hits a fever pitch until… breakthrough! Code cracked. “Welcome to Facebook,” the Mark Zuckerberg character greets the victor.

I’m reminded of this scene as I scroll through Facebook’s impressive S1 this morning. The company is not only more profitable than many had believed, it’s soared into the black in a remarkably quick period. Basically, its fortunes turned when it turned on Like in 2009, and began integrating it into the fabric of the web in the following months. A lot of the focus over the next few months will be paid to Facebook’s numbers and what it means for the future of the social media sector. (Yes, it’s time to give social it’s own industry sector designation now). But what’s more impressive to me is Facebook’s management and recruitment philosophy, what it calls the “Hacker Way.” This comes from Facebook’s S1:

We value our “hacker culture,” which we define as a work environment that rewards creative problem solving and rapid decision making. We try to move fast in developing new products and then continually iterate and optimize to further improve our products. We seek employees who are motivated by the ability to have a direct impact on how hundreds of millions of people around the world connect, discover, and express themselves.

We encourage our employees to think boldly. We also have posted the phrase “this journey is 1% finished” across many of our office walls, to remind employees that we believe that we have only begun fulfilling our mission to make the world more open and connected.

Zuckerberg, the Harvard dropout, goes on to explain his unorthodox anti-business approach, that, it turns out, is very good for business. “We don’t build services to make money; we make money to build better services,” he writes. As Reuters notes, this is a company “grounded in an engineering culture.” One that just happens to be more profitable than Google at the time of its IPO. Zuckerberg’s musings on his own success to date happen to neatly coincide with new research from this week that says it is engineers, and not MBAs, who are more likely to build and run successful new companies. To this, I say, nurture and channel your inner geek.

Stealing a line from Zuckerberg: Your journey is 1% finished.

Editor’s Note: we’re pleased to be bringing back our popular instructional workshop: Social Media Crisis Communications to be held in London on February 29. Again, we will be teaming with Neil Chapman, former comms chief at BP. He has some amazing stories and lessons to share from his experience with the Deepwater Horizon spill. It will be an interesting day dedicated to reputation management and crisis communications. Come join us!

If the recent Costa Concordia tragedy or McDonald’s #McFail hijacking have taught us anything, it’s that even savvy digital marketers can still get swamped by the social media-fueled crisis. That’s why we’ve produced another helpful tool to help you and your social media team adroitly navigate the lurking corporate crisis.

Proper reputation management and crisis control begins with joined-up internal processes. You might have the fanciest monitoring software in place, but what good is it if the results aren’t shared or communicated to the proper people within an organization? And in a timely fashion. There’s just one problem: your team is picking up a lot of noise. How do you know what to prioritize, what to focus on, what to respond to? What to do? Read on.

In October, we published the Social Media Crisis Communications Decision Tree, a kind of corporate schematic to help you and your team think through and respond (or not!) to potentially reputation-damaging posts made by the public. Now we’re publishing  the Social Media Crisis Response Plan, a handy guide to help you better organize your internal processes and thinking to keep your brand from being the next big #Fail. Big thanks to crisis comms veteran Neil Chapman for his unique insights on this. (Click the image below to enlarge)

To download a PDF of the infographic click: Social Media Crisis Response Plan

Editor’s Note: we’re pleased to be bringing back our popular instructional workshop: Social Media Crisis Communications to be held in London on February 29. Again, we will be teaming with Neil Chapman, former comms chief at BP. He has some amazing stories and lessons to share from his experience with the Deepwater Horizon spill. It will be an interesting day dedicated to reputation management and crisis communications. Come join us!

If you’re like us you spend an increasing amount of time trying to keep up with all the news bursts, surveys, top 10 lists and infographics flowing through your sustainability Twitter feed.

But how can you be sure that you’re following the best people to help you cut through the noise of all that sustainability chatter?

That’s why we created the Wizness Green Twitterati, a list of 100 top tweeters about sustainability and business from the media, agencies and consultants, companies, government and academia.

To be honest there are so many good voices on Twitter about business sustainability that we had to leave some people out. Let us know if you think you should be included and we’ll revisit the Twitterati in six months time.

You can read the full Green Twitterati by downloading the new Social Media Sustainability Index.

How many times have you been shopping and come across what seems like a great deal in a sale only to discover that the same great deal is subject to a minefield of complicated terms and conditions, ultimately rendering it a ‘so-so’ deal instead? Sound familiar?

Department store JC Penney has decided it’s time to ‘end the madness’ of confusing sales prices, and has announced across a number of channels that on February 1^st everything will change. Until then, however, Facebook users are invited to enjoy the store’s ‘Biggest and best-ever crazy and exhausting and totally confusing sale ever’, with three special offers designed to flummox and enrage: cut out an intricately shaped coupon 78 times in order to claim a handbag which is now sold out, for example.

Fans of the page are then invited to vent their frustrations into the NO! meter. By enabling their computer’s camera and microphone, users can share their screams with other exasperated consumers – something which is touched upon in the TV advert which sees enraged shoppers shouting and screaming about the unnecessary complexities of sales shopping.

Ultimately, users are encourages to join JCP’s ‘No More Madness’ event (on February 1^st), where the brand will reveal the ‘biggest news in JCP history’. They add that ‘Yeah, we’re talking big time here, since we’ve been around for 110 years’. Over 35,800 people have joined the event, so clearly JCP has tapped into a source of contention amongst its shoppers.

But what will the news be? Clearly the brand is planning on overhauling its sales style, but how? JCP has done well to build momentum and intrigue around its campaign, since its wall is littered with chat and dialogue speculating on exactly what plans are afoot. And crucially, JCP is engaging with its audience in return, playing the hand of social media in a way many brands still overlook.

New York Times media reporter David Carr has a brilliant piece this morning about Rupert Murdoch, the embattled media baron, political kingmaker, and grumpy Twitter newby. In this age of super-controlled messaging and non-newsy corporate announcements, Murdoch’s emergence on Twitter gives us a rare glimpse into the mind of the man in charge. Is this a trailblazing moment in corporate comms or a one-man, one-act show about to get the hook?

First, a little perspective. Murdoch’s December, 2011 debut on Twitter comes about 9 months after that of the ultimate #winner Charlie Sheen and close to two years after Hugo Chavez. Late to the game? Nah, the likes of Jeff Bezos and GE’s Jeffrey Immelt are still on the sidelines. (With GE shares down 50% in the last decade, it’s unlikely the latter will start Tweeting to the masses any day soon).So, Murdoch’s neither late, nor early, (nor perfectly timed), but his Twittering style does serve us up an interesting lesson in proper Tweeting from the C-Suite.

As Carr states:

The rules of effective tweeting for business leaders are no different from the ones for us mere mortals who want to both express ourselves and remain employed: Don’t be boring, don’t curse, and for heaven’s sake, don’t always be shouting about how some junior executive is really knocking it dead. Being interesting is the key to going viral, and on that score, I’d give Mr. Murdoch decent marks.

Here too. We’ve twice featured his Tweets in our “Tweets of the Week” section. I don’t agree with his politics, his take on online piracy, but I’m a big fan of his candor, particularly in this age of bland corporate obfuscation that serves for corporate communications.

In 2010 when Chavez started Tweeting I put together a list together of golden rules for Tweeting bosses, not all of whom are sociopaths of course. I was hopeful at the time that we would be seeing more captains of industry, heads of state and local officials embrace the Tweet. I was wrong there, but the rules are still worth reviewing. Here they are again:

1) Don’t rely soley on Twitter to make your point. Chávez informed his party faithful of his imminent Twitter debut during his weekend variety show Aló Presidente. Sure, it helps if you have a monopoly on the local airwaves. But Chávez shows real social media savvy here by going cross-platform with his message. And there’s a Chávez blog too in the works. The Venezuelan president’s choice of “candanga” in his Twitter handle shows flair too. The word is a local expression to describe a person with an “explosive” personality. Expect some fireworks, twitterverse.

2) It bears repeating: be insightful, but keep it brief. Yes, the 140-character limit even applies to you too, dear leader. “The loquacious leader [is] known for speeches that last hours,” The New York Times points out, questioning whether he can be disciplined enough to stay within the limits of Twitter verbosity.

3) Don’t be complacent. Congratulations, you’ve recruited more than 85,000 followers in the first day. (The Dalai Lama scored just 44,000 in day one, I recall). But it’s been a full 24 hours since your first Tweet and your “Chavista” followers are anxious to hear more. Meanwhile, rivals, using the #freeVenezuela hashtag, have gone on the attack as Venezuelan Tweeter Arturo Hidalgo broadcasts, “power outages show saturation of #Venezuelan electricity grid.”

4) Do you have a crisis response strategy in place? Now that you’re on Twitter, critics will be leveling charges directly at you when you make a misstep. Are you ready for this? Ignore them at your peril, lest you trigger an angry Twitterstorm. Here are a few tips on how to deal with the hashtag-crisis that could sink your reputation. Hint: don’t pull a Toyota.

5) Don’t get distracted by your escalating follower numbers. What’s more valuable to you is what the public is saying about you. Scan Twitter to see where you’re performing well in the public’s eye, and what areas still need improving. Maybe the creaking electric grid is a good place to start.

6) How do you measure your influence in a forum that boasts some pretty influential people? Again, not by counting your follower numbers, but by watching the number of people who re-tweet your missives. After day one, you’re not doing so well, Mr. Presidente. We found only a few re-tweets, including this one from a Twitter used based in “Hell.”

7) Be generous. This is the same advice I gave the Dalai Lama in this column. You are not going to agree with everyone on Twitter, but do make a point to re-tweet the genuinely brilliant, witty and provocative posts you come across. Twitter is a conversation, after all. Yes, listening is required.