Mobile tech brands most talked about online: Edelman

Apple, Android and Research in Motion (RIM) were found to be the most talked about brands, appearing in nearly two million conversations.

The bulk of the 6.5 million online conversations tracked in the research took place on China’s Sina Weibo microblogging platform, where technology brands were mentioned over three million times — twice the number of technology brand references on Twitter across all six markets covered. Twitter was the second ‘buzziest’ channel for technology brands, followed by local forums.

In addition to calculating the rate of conversation for different brands, the report ranked brands in terms of their perceived innovative qualities. Four Asian brands emerged as ‘innovation idols’ in the ranking, including Sina, Samsung, HTC and QQ. Google was the only technology brand to rank in the top five in the innovation idols category in all markets, while Microsoft and Samsung were the only brands to consistently fall within the top 10.

Sanjay Nair, Edelman’s Asia-Pacific technology practice lead, said that Asian consumers, particularly millennials, were “hungry for ways to engage directly with brands”, and that the time was “ripe for mobile brands to step up their social media activities, build genuine connections with consumers through hyper-local programming and secure market share”.

The study was conducted between 1 June to 31 August across six markets including China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan and Singapore.