This report examines how key social media channels are used in the semiconductor industry. We have taken the top semiconductor companies and analysed each company’s use of:
1. Blogs
2. Facebook
3. Twitter
4. YouTube
5. LinkedIn
6. Google+
We provided a top ranking for each channel and developed a combined cross-channel ranking to arrive at the overall index.
2. Who’s winning the social media battle in the semiconductor industry?
SOCIAL SUCCESS
Who’s winning the social media
battle in the semiconductor industry?
By Jon Barrett, Digital Marketing Specialist, Publitek
1. OVERVIEW
This report examines how
key social media channels
are used in the semiconductor
industry. We have taken the
top semiconductor companies
(according to gross turnover –
main source: Wikipedia) and
analysed each company’s use
of:
1. Blogs
2. Facebook
3. Twitter
4. YouTube
5. LinkedIn
6. Google+
We provided a top ranking for
each channel and developed a
combined cross-channel ranking
to arrive at the overall index.
1
We took a company’s individual
‘number’ score for a channel,
and multiplied this by its ‘good
practice’ score.
The companies are ranked by
performance in each channel. Then
an average was taken of their
positions to create the final table.
Of the top 25 semiconductor
companies, we discounted five
(Intel, Samsung, Sony, Toshiba,
Nvidia) due to the diversity of
their offering and the difficulty
of segmenting activity relating
to semiconductors. We also
discounted Elpida due to the
acquisition by Micron.
A six month period was chosen for
this study: April – September 2013.
The remaining 19 companies
analysed were:
1. AMD
2. Analog Devices
3. ARM
4. Atmel
5. Broadcom
6. Freescale Semiconductor
7. Fujitsu
8. Infineon Technologies
9. MediaTek
10. Micron Technology
11. Nichia
12. NXP
13. Qualcomm
14. Renesas Electronics
15. Rohm Semiconductor
16. SK Hynix
17. STMicroelectronics
18. Texas Instruments
19. Xilinx
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3. Who’s winning the social media battle in the semiconductor industry?
2. FINDINGS
Facebook likes
Topline results
Google+ followers
• Qualcomm is number 1 in the
semiconductor social media index
LinkedIn followers
• The top 5 comprises Qualcomm,
AMD, Texas Instruments, Fujitsu and
Freescale Semiconductor
YouTube subscribers
Twitter followers
• Texas Instruments tops the best
practice index, scoring 5 out of 5
• The total number of people
connecting with semiconductor
companies through social media
channels is summarised as follows:
– Facebook likes: 2,127,503
– Google+ followers: 28,192
– LinkedIn followers: 653,286
– Twitter followers: 267,733
– YouTube subscribers: 62,321
Figure 1: Graph to show social media connectivity among top global semiconductor firms
3. BLOGGING
We believe that blogging is the
channel that provides the greatest
opportunity semiconductor
companies: to engage with
customers and prospects; drive
traffic to the website – both
from new and returning visitors
as part of an integrated SEO
strategy; as well as establishing
authority within key markets and
applications.
It was therefore somewhat
surprising to find that seven of
the 19 companies reviewed did
not have a blog, but of these
companies, three had community
forums instead. Two approaches
are taken by companies to
manage the sheer volume and
diverse topics within their blogs.
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Some companies e.g. Texas
Instruments, use categories, and
provide visitors with routes into
each category from the homepage.
Others have multiple blogs that they
keep completely separate from one
another.
This approach is obviously only
suitable where a company’s
offering is diverse enough to
warrant a complete separation,
and they are able to produce
a sufficient volume of content to
populate separate blogs.
Texas Instruments provide clear segmentation of their blog by different topics
2
4. Who’s winning the social media battle in the semiconductor industry?
Rank
#
Company
name
Blog
Good
posts practice
1
Texas Instruments
363
5
2
Atmel
383
3
3
SK Hynix
267
2
4
Qualcomm
64
5
5
Broadcom
54
3
6
Fujitsu
45
3
7
NXP
41
2
8
AMD
33
3
Table 1: Ranking of semiconductor
companies for use of blogs
9
Micron Technology
29
4
10
ARM
25
4
11
Freescale Semiconductor
30
2
12
Xilinx
13
1
13
Renesas Electronics
-
-
14
STMicroelectronics
-
-
15
Infineon Technologies
-
-
16
MediaTek
-
-
17
Rohm Semiconductor
-
-
18
Analog Devices
-
-
19
Nichia
-
-
Table 2: Ranking of semiconductor
companies for use of Facebook
Rank
#
Company
name
No. of
likes
Good
practice
1,374,905
5
1
AMD
2
Qualcomm
475,422
3
3
Atmel
127,546
2
4
Texas Instruments
38,595
5
5
Freescale Semiconductor
27,511
3
6
ARM
21,383
3
7
Fujitsu
23,062
2
8
Xilinx
10,197
3
4
4,597
4
11
STMicroelectronics
3,723
2
NXP
3,253
1
Micron Technology
4,515
-
14
Infineon Technologies
2,327
-
15
Rohm Semiconductor
2,130
-
16
Renesas Electronics
1,630
-
17
MediaTek
1,649
-
18
SK Hynix
714
-
19
3
5,643
Analog Devices
13
Possibly the most surprising result
from the research is the success of
Facebook – both in terms of the
huge numbers of people that have
associated themselves with the
companies reviewed (68% of all
followers are found on Facebook),
Broadcom
12
4. FACEBOOK
9
10
Nichia
331
-
and also in terms of the level of
engagement on company
Facebook pages.
This debunks the commonly held
belief that Facebook isn’t a
suitable channel for the
semiconductor industry.
• There are 2,127,503 fans of
semiconductor companies.
• All semiconductors had a social
presence on Facebook, as pages
are setup automatically which if
unclaimed by the company, are
populated from Wikipedia.
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5. Who’s winning the social media battle in the semiconductor industry?
• Qualcomm were the only company
to make use of the new regionalisation
functionality provided by Facebook,
which allows companies to set up
sub-pages from the main company
profile, based on geographic location.
Rank
#
Company
name
Followers
+1’s
Good
practice
19,738
31,341
4
n/a
8,076
5
1
AMD
2
Qualcomm
3
Atmel
1,844
3,262
4
5. GOOGLE+
4
Texas Instruments
1,974
2,566
5
Despite recent reports that the number
of Google+ users has recently eclipsed
the number of users on Twitter, our
research indicates it still is a ghost town
for semiconductor companies, with far
fewer followers than any of the other
social networks reviewed (just 1%),
and very low levels of engagement for
those that are on there.
5
Freescale Semiconductor
1,556
2,125
4
6
ARM
1,066
1,959
4
7
Fujitsu
830
1,140
5
8
Xilinx
n/a
746
5
9
Broadcom
426
710
5
10
Analog Devices
210
732
4
11
STMicroelectronics
308
445
4
12
NXP
78
122
4
13
Micron Technology
79
108
4
14
Infineon Technologies
31
76
4
15
Rohm Semiconductor
44
64
1
16
Renesas Electronics
8
9
2
17
MediaTek
-
-
-
18
SK Hynix
-
-
-
19
Nichia
-
-
-
Having said that, Google+ can’t be
ignored – if only because of the SEO
benefits that can derived if this channel
is used correctly, and also because we
all know Google isn’t going to give in
and let Facebook and Twitter continue
to dominate the social space.
Table 4: Ranking of semiconductor
companies for use of Google+
AMD are doing particularly well on volume of Facebook likes and Google+ followers
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4
6. Who’s winning the social media battle in the semiconductor industry?
6. LINKEDIN
LinkedIn is the second
most popular channel for
semiconductor company
followers, accounting 21% of
the total.
Rank
#
Company
name
Followers
Good
practice
3
2
Texas Instruments
82,854
5
3
Fujitsu
63,548
5
4
AMD
57,744
5
5
Broadcom
56,298
5
6
STMicroelectronics
49,043
3
7
Freescale Semiconductor
45,691
3
8
NXP
34,698
3
9
Infineon Technologies
25,455
4
10
ARM
22,833
5
11
Micron Technology
21,959
5
12
Xilinx
22,174
4
Analog Devices
21,488
3
Atmel
13,829
5
15
MediaTek
5,790
1
16
SK Hynix
2,935
3
17
5
122,326
14
Table 4: Ranking of semiconductor
companies for use of LinkedIn
Qualcomm
13
Although LinkedIn was the
only social channel where all
of the companies reviewed
had a presence that they
had populated with bespoke
content, it is underutilised
by several of these, who
use it purely for recruitment
purposes, and neither push
social content, nor engage in
group activity.
1
Renesas Electronics
3,683
1
18
Rohm Semiconductor
610
1
19
Nichia
328
1
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7. Who’s winning the social media battle in the semiconductor industry?
Rank
#
Company
name
Followers
Tweets
Good
practice
1
Qualcomm
77,537
4,244
4
2
Fujitsu
45,563
3,087
4
3
AMD
31,217
2,744
5
4
Texas Instruments
27,539
6,876
5
5
Broadcom
21,300
2,639
4
6
Freescale Semiconductor
12,986
4,780
5
7
NXP
10,901
4,138
5
8
Analog Devices
9,301
5,252
5
9
Atmel
9,000
4,436
5
10
Xilinx
7,903
2,565
5
11
Micron Technology
5,415
718
5
12
Renesas Electronics
4,624
2,687
5
13
STMicroelectronics
2,751
862
4
14
ARM
2,211
2,234
4
15
Rohm Semiconductor
2,224
298
3
16
Infineon Technologies
1,003
546
4
17
MediaTek
882
423
3
18
SK Hynix
-
-
-
19
Nichia
-
-
-
Table 5: Ranking of semiconductor
companies for use of Twitter
7. TWITTER
Another surprise was Twitter,
with just 8% of the total follower
audience.
It did however top the table
in terms of best practice, with
the majority of companies
integrating additional social
channels, and responding to
direct messages from followers.
• 267,733 people follow
semiconductor companies.
• All bar two companies had a
Twitter account, with many having
more than one, to serve different
regions and applications.
• 45,842 tweets sent out by
semiconductor companies
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6
8. Who’s winning the social media battle in the semiconductor industry?
8. YOU TUBE
A very high number of videos
are being watched showing that
semiconductor companies should
not ignore video as it is a key
medium in communicating with
their audience.
The top companies create video
playlists to organise videos into
key topics, allowing visitors to
browse the collection, almost like
a blog categorisation system.
Rank
#
Company
name
Views
Subscribers
Good
practice
1
Qualcomm
13,253,062
11,228
5
2
ARM
8,621,814
6,520
2
3
Fujitsu
2,895,580
944
5
4
Texas Instruments
2,054,498
3,942
5
5
AMD
1,804,764
20,393
5
6
Atmel
1,223,638
3,271
5
7
Infineon Technologies
1,174,178
2,520
5
8
Micron Technology
881,280
699
4
All companies permitted viewers
to comment on videos, but these
were rarely (if ever) responded
to.
9
Analog Devices
547,254
2,369
5
10
Freescale Semiconductor
477,246
3,092
5
• 32,480,568 videos watched
11
NXP
452,049
1,373
5
12
Xilinx
379,403
2,688
5
13
Broadcom
259,253
617
4
14
Renesas Electronics
200,935
676
4
15
STMicroelectronics
182,631
981
4
16
MediaTek
124,754
1,002
4
17
SK Hynix
2,565
3
1
18
Rohm Semiconductor
162
3
1
19
Nichia
-
-
-
• 62,321 subscribers to
semiconductor channels
Table 6: Ranking of semiconductor
companies for use of YouTube
7
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9. Who’s winning the social media battle in the semiconductor industry?
9. BEST PRACTICE
Texas Instruments were the clear
winners with regard to best
practice, with their use of social
channels scoring top marks
throughout. All social channels
are integrated, and the company
responds directly to followers
that engage directly with them.
Table 7:
Ranking of
semiconductor
companies by
average of best
practice scores
across six key
social media
activities
Rank
#
Company
name
Average
Company
name
Qualcomm
2.33
2
Texas Instruments
2.83
3
AMD
3.67
4
Fujitsu
4.17
5
Atmel
7.33
6
ARM
7.50
7
Freescale Semiconductor
7.50
8
Broadcom
8.00
9
NXP
9.50
10
Xilinx
10.50
11
Analog Devices
10.83
12
STMicroelectronics
11.17
13
Micron Technology
Infineon Technologies
Renesas Electronics
SK Hynix
14.83
17
MediaTek
16.17
18
Rohm Semiconductor
16.33
19
Nichia
19.00
Atmel
4.5
Qualcomm
4.33
Fujitsu
4.33
Xilinx
4.17
7
ARM
4
8
Broadcom
3.83
9
Freescale Semiconductor
3.83
10
NXP
3.66
11
Analog Devices
3.66
12
Infineon Technologies
3.5
13
STMicroelectronics
3
14
Micron Technology
3
15
Renesas Electronics
2.83
16
MediaTek
1.66
17
Rohm Semiconductor
1.33
18
SK Hynix
1.17
19
Nichia
0.17
14.17
16
3
12.50
15
4.5
11.67
14
AMD
5
1
2
4
Average
Texas Instruments
6
Rank
#
1
www.publitek.com
5
10. SOCIAL MEDIA INDEX
Table 8: The
Socal Media
Index of
semiconductor
companies by
average of
position rank in
each channel
The semiconductor industry
social media index uses a
combination of both qualitative
data for utilising best practice
techniques, and quantitative data
based on the audience reach
(e.g. number of followers)
and channel activity (e.g. number
of blog posts).
8
10. Who’s winning the social media battle in the semiconductor industry?
Channel
Quantative measure
Blogs
Number of posts in the last
six months
Good practice weighting
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Users can comment
Company replies to comments
Blog is promoted well within the web estate
Blog is integrated with other social media activity
Blogging widely supported, with range or seniority of bloggers
Facebook
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Company replies to wall posts
Company uses apps
Company has personalised its URL
Channel is integrated with other social media activity
Channel is linked to the corporate web site
Google+
Number of followers
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Company is posting messages
Company is replying to messages
General profile completed
Channel is integrated with other social media activity
Channel is linked to the corporate web site
LinkedIn
Number of followers
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Company profile completed
Company is posting messages
Channel has employee testimonials
Channel is integrated with other social media activity
Channel is linked to the corporate web site
Twitter
Number of followers
Number of tweets
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Company profile completed
Company is posting messages
Channel has employee testimonials
Channel is integrated with other social media activity
Channel is linked to the corporate website
YouTube
9
Number of fans
Number of video views
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Comments are enabled
Company uses playlists
Channel is customised
Channel is integrated with other social media activity
Channel is linked to the corporate website
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11. Who’s winning the social media battle in the semiconductor industry?
APPENDIX - METHODOLOGY
• For each channel we recorded
quantitative measures of activity,
for example Twitter followers and
tweets
• Companies were also awarded
points for demonstrating good
practice in how they used each
channel. These good practice
criteria are simple steps that
companies can and should take
in order to engage successfully in
each channel
How we calculated the rankings
1. Calculate the individual
company score for each of the six
channels
a. Channel Score = Quantitative
Measure X Good Practice
Weighting
b. Good practice weighting is
an opportunity for companies to
improve their overall score by
the quality of how they use social
media channels.
c. Companies with zero scores
were treated as joint last place.
c. For each of the five good
practice criteria a company can
score an extra 20% above their
quantitative score.
3. Take the Average Ranking
across all four channels
d. In the few cases where
companies had zero for the Good
practice weighting they were
not penalised – their Channel
Score was based solely on the
Quantitative Measure.
a. Average Ranking = (Blog
ranking + Facebook ranking +
Google+ ranking + LinkedIn
ranking + Twitter ranking +
YouTube ranking) / 6
e. Companies that did not use a
particular channel were scored
at zero.
4. Rank each company from
1 downwards by its Average
Ranking across all four channels
to provide the overall index
2. Rank each company from 1
downwards by its individual
Channel Score for each channel
a. The lowest Average Ranking
score was ranked number 1 and
so on until all companies were
ranked.
a. The highest score was ranked
number 1 and so on until all
companies were ranked.
b. Companies with equal scores
were treated as joint ranked.
b. Companies with equal scores
were treated as joint rankings.
How does your company
rank in social media?
To find out, contact me.
Jon Barrett,
Digital Marketing Specialist
Email: jon.barrett@publitek.com
Tel: +44 (0) 1225 470000
www.publitek.com
10
12. INFLUENTIAL TWEETS – How B2B electronics media in North America are using Twitter
About Publitek
Publitek is the world’s leading digital marketing and technology PR
agency for the B2B electronics industry. By complementing our in-house
capabilities with proven partners, we offer a multi-lingual, global capability
encompassing both corporate and technical communications.
Publitek Ltd, 18 Brock Street, Bath, BA1 2LW
Tel: +44 (0) 1225 470000