While being on this list may not get you groupies, drugs and million dollar record deals, it does get you book deals, millions of followers and immortality (well maybe at least digitally). Just like how a Rock Star needs to have charisma, talent, and authenticity, in order to be a Social Rock Star, you need to be a triple threat as well. You cannot be a one hit wonder, or a mere hack spamming the internet with useless garbage.

How it is calculated

Potential social rock stars need to have an active blog as well as be active on Twitter and Facebook. They really need to rock the key social media platforms. We looked at over 1,000 of the top business blogs. We looked at more than just social media blogs because we felt that there were so many crossovers, it was hard to draw the line.

  • In ranking each blog, we looked at social engagement, which refers to how interesting or relevant the blog content is. Examples of measures of engagement include others writing a blog post about that person, bookmarking an article they wrote, leaving a comment on their blog, or clicking a link on their page to read a news item.
  • For Twitter rankings we looked at the size of their engaged audience, the likelihood that their messages will generate actions, and how influential their engaged audience is.
  • For Facebook, we looked at the number of fans, the power of their network and the completeness of their page.

The Rock Stars

RANK
ROCKSTAR
BLOG
TWITTER
FACEBOOK
BLOG RANK
TWITTER RANK
FACEBOOK RANK
1
Seth Godin
3
9
1
2
Brian Solis
17
3
12
3
Chris Brogan
13
1
21
4

John Jantsch
19
11
14
5
Jay Baer
23
4
31
6
Danny Brown
22
15
23
7
John Chow
20
28
20
8
Francisco Rosales
34
36
33
9
Kristi Hines
29
23
40
10
Jeremy Schoemaker
41
39
18

Dominating, and showing that he really is the “Mick Jagger of social media is Seth Godin. Just like how Jagger has charisma, skill and is memorable, Godin has it all, having the most engaged blog and Facebook following (among the Rockstars); he is just behind Brogan, Solis and Baer on Twitter. Coming in second, the “Robert Plant” of our list, with consistent performance throughout, is Brian Solis. The “Ozzy Osbourne” of our list ,Chris Brogan, rounds out the top 3, mainly because of his lack of Facebook page. He really only has a Chris Brogan Media fan page, and that just does not compare to that of Godin’s and Solis’.

The Band

RANK
ROCKSTAR
BLOG
TWITTER
FACEBOOK
BLOG RANK
TWITTER RANK
FACEBOOK RANK
1
Social Media Today
2
10
3
2
Search Engine Land
1
6
8
3
HubSpot
6
7
6
4

ProBlogger
10
2
7
5
Social Times
5
19
2
6
SEOMoz
7
14
13
7
Search Engine Journal
4
27
9
8
Social Media Examiner
31
12
5
9
Top Rank Blog
12
24
15
10
eMarketer
38
16
11

But what is a great rock star without a supporting band? For us, “the band” is any team social media site. By that, we mean the blog has many contributors and the Twitter and Facebook accounts are managed by a team. An extremely close battle for the top is between Social Media Today and Search Engine Land. Choosing between these two is like choosing between The Beatles and The Rolling Stones: both are so amazing and it comes down to a matter of personal preference. We went with Social Media Today on that fact they dominated on Facebook, as it was a near split between them on the other two mediums. One of the interesting results was just how many SEO companies are heavily engaged in social media. With Google and the search engines adjusting their algorithms to include more social search, I am sure we will see this trend continue to grow.