PROGRAM DISCLAIMERS
What the Ranking Means
It is worth repeating that the Digital Momentum Index only compares single period/monthly changes (vs. year-to-date or a trailing month timeline), and so it is not uncommon to see a single-member company make leaps or appear/disappear each month. A company that achieved +25 percent growth last month would have to continue growth atop that to maintain their rank. The index is intended to be a measure of “who saw significant social media growth in the last 30 days” rather than a long-time leaderboard.
Our Efforts for Continuous Improvement & Accuracy
The amount of data available on Social Media and SOE / Web Traffic is both vast and ever-changing, and we’re learning more about it every month. We launched the Rankings in Q4 2020 with the intent to learn and collect feedback for a stable method in 2021, and we continue to learn and collect feedback. February rankings were calculated with the same data and weighting as January 2021 and December 2020, and we will make and announce any adjustments to the methodology quarterly.
Components
The list represents months of analysis across the three core pillars of social media marketing: web traffic & SEO analysis, Facebook activity, and Instagram activity.
Eligibility
A company is included in the Transformation Capital Direct Selling Momentum ranking when it has an active website, at least one active social media account, and at least 50,000 followers or fans for a single account (Facebook or Instagram).
As noted, our initial ranking methodology focuses exclusively on three primary drivers of online presence: web traffic, Facebook activity, and Instagram activity. We’ve aggregated roughly a dozen metrics from these three sources and assessed their change over the last thirty days in an attempt to measure the growth in a company’s online audience or momentum.
A brief explanation of our proprietary methodology follows:
Web Traffic & SEO
We analyze basic web traffic statistics as a measure of general interest. These statistics seek to measure the number of individuals searching for, visiting, and clicking on links that direct them to the company’s domain. This domain includes the corporate website and (in most cases) the company hosted web pages for individual distributors. Additionally, we analyze the number of third-party sources referring to internet users to the company website, as well as the number of associated keywords, branded phrases, or marketing jargon (hashtags, slogans, etc.) that are popular across the web. Assessing the change in these metrics over time creates an estimated increase or decrease in demand for the company across the web.
Facebook Activity
We gather a collection of metrics intended to measure thirty-day changes in both volume (count) and quality (engagement & communication with) of followers. Assessing the change in behavior on Facebook, we believe, is a valuable tool in determining improvements (or declines) of a brand’s social value.
Instagram Activity
As with Facebook, we focus on the thirty-day change of our metrics as a measure of social attention, or momentum, assuming a significant change in attention indicates changes in social interest and brand awareness.
A Note on Facebook vs. Instagram
Given varying target markets and consumer profiles, companies seem to often focus on Facebook or Instagram, rather than both. To ensure appropriate credit is given to the correct outlet, our metric analysis and momentum calculation consider which platform appears to be the primary for each company. As an example, if a company has 20,000 Instagram followers and 80,000 Facebook fans, all Facebook-related metrics will be weighted at 80% (80/100) of the total weighted social media metric score. Similarly, all Instagram-related metrics will be weighted 20%. Few companies do not have an active official Instagram account, and so their social media metric is based 100% on Facebook performance and changes. There are no companies in the list for which an official Facebook profile does not exist. Additionally, we are unable to track metrics specific to lead distributor accounts, as data from private accounts is not made accessible by Facebook or Instagram.
For questions please contact Preston Hund at phund@directsellingnews.com.