Netbase: 2021 Brand Passion Report

Netbase has released the "2021 Brand Passion Report". From April 2020 to April 2021, the most popular brands on social media are mainly concentrated in the technology, entertainment, consumer goods, e-commerce and social media industries. In its latest Brand Passion Report, Netbase observes people's love for brands through conversations, displays and emotions to determine the most popular brands on social media.

To measure consumers’ love for a brand, NetBase uses a series of love-related keywords and combines them with artificial intelligence to filter out irrelevant information.

Amazon knocked Instagram off the top spot this year. The e-commerce brand accounted for more than 10% of U.S. digital ad revenue in 2020 and is one of two e-commerce brands to top the list of the most valuable global brands. Another e-commerce brand, Etsy, ranked sixth.

Instagram, which was a clear leader last year, fell to eighth place. Another social media brand in the top 10 is YouTube, which rose nine places from last year to second place.

One of the big surprises this year was that only one tech brand made the top 10. Apple ranked ninth among the most popular global brands, while Google and Samsung dropped out of the top 10.

Here are the other major brands on the Netbase Brand Passion List:

Spotify, up from fourth place last year to third place
Disney, unchanged
Adidas, from 20th to 4th
Louis Vuitton, up from 34th to 7th
Netflix, No. 10

Overall, only six tech brands are in the top 100 most popular brands on social media. However, tech brands have a very high share of advertising (24%). In contrast, the food and beverage industry has only 2% of advertising, despite having 14 brands in the top 100.