The research was carried out between June 17 and 21 looking at the most popular and influential social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest.

Facebook

The report found that Amazon has leapfrogged Topshop to become the most ‘liked’ UK brand on Facebook, with 3.8 million compared to Topshop’s 3.4 million.

Amazon has also made the biggest improvement since the last wave of research, adding just over 600,000 new fans, while Asda saw the second biggest increase by adding 235,000 fans.

Amazon’s increase is attributed to the quality of its content, which includes offers, competitions and product promotions. It also appears to have invested in Sponsored Stories.

It’s also worth noting that Primark made it into the top 20 for the first time, entering at 19 after adding more than 197,000 new ‘likes’.

What are you talking about?

Facebook’s ‘Talking About’ metric measures the number of people talking about certain brands, taking into account wall posts, comments and page shares.

In general the ‘Talking About’ metric roughly tracks the follower numbers, however Asda, Argos and Primark have considerably higher numbers compared to their follower counts which suggests that they are having more succces in actively engaging their fans.

Twitter

There was no change among the most popular brands on Twitter as Topshop remained top of the tree after attracting the highest number of followers.

Waitrose entered the top 20 for the first time after adding 28,000 followers, while Tesco’s customer service feed moved up six places since the last wave to thirteenth overall.

Pinterest

And finally, the report shows that Topman still dominates the Pinterest league table with 60,000 more followers than its nearest rival.

This is quite bizarre considering the fact that Pinterest is normally viewed as a network that appeals to female users.

Also, there is still no representation from the supermarket and food sector, even though food and cookery images are among the most popular types of content on Pinterest.