• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, June 2, 2011

BMW, Clinique and Audi top a list of 100 prominent luxury brands on Facebook, according to a new study by digital think tank L2 and Facebook marketing firm Buddy Media. Auto and beauty brands claimed seven of the top 10 slots in the rankings that evaluate brands on four criteria: size and growth of Facebook community, engagement, content, and integration across other online platforms. 

Based on those benchmarks, brands are assigned "IQ scores" from over 140 to under 70 that equate to ratings including "genius," "gifted," "average," "challenged" or "feeble." The digital IQ index developed by L2 scores companies against more than 200 qualitative and quantitative individual data points. In contrast to the mostly auto and beauty brands at the top of the list, those in the jewelry and watch category had the lowest average scores.

What makes some brands "geniuses" with scores of 140 or higher? In BMW's case, the study highlights the luxury automaker's efforts to engage its 5.7 million fans on Facebook with a range of content including polls, videos and photos. "BMW understands the importance of fan-created content, and the page hosts more than 26,000 fan photos and some 400 fan videos; the most of any brand in the study," states the report.

Engaging fans and integrating its Facebook presence with its online catalog helped land women's fashion brand Tory Burch in the top 10. While a competitor like Burberry boasts a far larger fan base, Tory Burch surged ahead in the rankings because it lets people post comments on its wall and provides links to its Facebook page from its brand page. It allows users to "share" items on every product page with Facebook friends.

Conversely, brands such as Rolex, Patek Phillipe and Harry Winston earned the "feeble" designation with scores well under 70, placing them near the bottom of rankings. Coming in at No. 100, however, was famed champagne brand Dom Perignon with a score of 24 -- nothing to celebrate.

"Prestige marketers are making significant investments in Facebook growth, but many still fail to authentically engage with their fans," stated L2 founder and NYU marketing professor Scott Galloway on the findings.

Specifically, the study found that 28% of prestige brands don't allow fans to post on their Facebook wall, giving them an average IQ score of 82 compared to an average of 107 for brands allowing wall posts. An analysis of more than 800 wall posts showed that those focused on products had the highest interaction rates, while posts about contests and promotions had the lowest.

The report also concluded brands' Facebook marketing efforts were poorly integrated with other digital properties -- just over half were promoted on brand sites through shared technology and only 29% incorporated a "Like" button. None of the 100 brands studied are currently involved in e-commerce on Facebook. L2 and Buddy Media, however, expect "F-commerce" to be the biggest area of investment for companies on Facebook in the next year.

While Burberry (No. 49) had the largest fan base overall, at 6.1 million, the fastest-growing brands in the last year ending in May included Valentino, Dewar's, Chopard, Johnnie Walker and IWC.

The most responsive brands were L'Occitane, Kiehl's, Korbel and Vacheron Constantin -- each responded to at least half the weekly fan posts they received on Facebook. Cosmetics company Smashbox, Bare Escentuals, Pandora, SK-II and Valentino had those the most active fans, based on average weekly fan posts as a percentage of total page "likes."