• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, September 10, 2012

Coca-Cola was the top-performing social media brand in August, according to the latest ranking published by social marketing platform Optimal. The company bases the ranking on an index that combines data including fan counts, engagement statistics and “global fan valuation” to provide a baseline for estimating the value of a brand's social media presence.

Coke showed an index growth of 1,425 points in August, followed by Reese's (1,378), Monster Energy (1,068), Pepsi (948), and CoverGirl (858). One component of the Optimal Index is the raw growth in the number of Likes for a brand. Coke, which recently hit 50 million fans on Facebook, add 3.7 million fans in August, with Target, Samsung Mobile USA, Amazon.com and Walmart rounding out the top five in fan growth last month.