So the ENGAGEMENTdb has been out for a little over two weeks and it’s interesting to look at what’s been most powerful at driving traffic to the site.  Here is what we’ve seen to date:

• 32,000 visitors
• 105,000 pageviews
• 3 minutes on site
• 26,000 views of the report
• 6,000 people ranking their own social media efforts
• 5,000 visits to the database
• 800 unique submissions to the database

Being that we’re talking about the social web, I was really interested in how folks ended up on the site.  Going in, my bet was Twitter would be the primary driver.  Needless to say, I would have lost that bet.  The TechCrunch post on the ENGAGEMENTdb is the number one driver of traffic to the site, accounting for 8.4% of all visitors while Twitter is accounting for 7.6%.  Even more interesting, both TechCrunch and Twitter are outperforming all-powerful Google, currently accounting for 3% of the site’s traffic.  I would bet we’ll see Google’s importance increase over time as the site gains reputation and we do some basic SEO on the site.  But it’s certainly hard to argue with the power of Michael Arrington’s TechCrunch and Twitter as a way of driving traffic when you have something valuable to get out to the community.

According to a recently published MediaPost story story, a new brand climbed to king of the Facebook hill:  Starbucks unseated Coca Cola as the #1 Facebook brand.  It’s not surprising, and it’s *not* all about Facebook.  In fact, it’s all about multi-channel, deep-and-wide engagement initiative at Starbucks to connect with their consumers just like they do in their stores all around the world.

These investments pay big dividends.  In Starbucks’ case, despite the extraordinarily unfavorable recession environment for premium-priced indulgence consumer beverages, the company is continuing to build its brand which will pay off when pockets are jingling again.

I’m not surprised by this finding as it matches well with the ENGAGEMENTdb Report we just released. Starbucks was the number one social brand among the BusinessWeek / Interbrand rankings of the world’s most valuable brands.  Coke, on the other hand, ranked right in the middle of the pack at 51.

With 35 team members, SAP has one of the largest social media teams around. However, those 35 people are tasked with keeping 1.7 million members talking and active for the benefit of the company and, more importantly, the developer community themselves. When you’re interacting with that many people, engagement isn’t a tactic for SAP; it is core to everything the company does. It gets to be that way by:

• Opening the platform to anyone and everyone
• Encouraging employees to tap into social media to get work done
• Engaging in new channels where people already are
• Supporting engagement as an extension of the company culture

Each of the above is detailed in the ENGAGEMENTdb Report.  Check it out and leave a comment with your thoughts about the SAP approach.