SAN MATEO, Calif.-- BrightEdge, the world’s first enterprise class SEO platform that helps brands rise above the increasing clutter of the Web, released a new SocialShare report today that shows the power and influence of the Facebook “Like” button for viral discovery and distribution. Since the launch of the “Like” and “Share” buttons, links to the front pages of the top 1,000 sites on the Web have been liked and shared on Facebook more than 65 million times.

The analysis also looked at these top 1,000 sites to learn which Facebook share buttons have gained the most ubiquity. BrightEdge for the first time was able to rank Facebook’s many share buttons in a top 10 rank based on usage on the Web’s largest and most trafficked sites.

“Changes to Facebook social plugins may be imminent and this analysis shows how significant these features have become on the Web today,” said Jim Yu, CEO of BrightEdge. “Very few features have achieved the massive scale of adoption that Facebook ‘Like ‘and ‘Share’ buttons now see across the Internet. And the usage of these buttons is unprecedented in the history of the Web.”

The BrightEdge SocialShare Engine also was able to learn for the first time ever that 25 percent of the top 1,000 web sites have adopted Facebook plugins. The “Like” Button is the most utilized share feature that Facebook offers. It lets users share pages from a site directly on their Facebook profile with a single click of a button.

The report states that Facebook plugins are offering increased insight into user interest, rapidly transforming Facebook from a social graph of connections between people to an interest graph that reflects the social signals about interests, opinions and desires.

BrightEdge says this transition creates opportunity for marketers to understand and utilize signals to drive traffic in the face of increasing adoption of social buttons (see September SocialShare). Facebook is now offering marketers increased relevance with which to measure and take action on this social signal stream.

Marketers continue to look for ways to capitalize on the trend of user driven marketing, where billions of potential customers are searching, sharing, wanting and subscribing to products, services and brands. This is the edge of marketing’s funnel, where users are in control of their search and social activity, and marketers look to understand and convert prospective customers based on the signals they are sending.

The BrightEdge analysis examines and analyzes the front pages of the world’s 1,000 most trafficked sites. The analysis seeks to measure the presence of social plugins on these large web properties and the presence of links to social pages. The monthly SocialShare Analysis provides an important window into the growth and utilization of social tools by the world’s most well known brands.

To download the latest BrightEdge SocialShare report, please visit: http://www2.brightedge.com/social-share-September-2011-FBSpecial.

About BrightEdge

BrightEdge is the leading enterprise SEO platform and the trusted partner of the largest and most recognizable brands in the world. BrightEdge helps marketers rise above the increasing clutter of the web and drive organic revenue from search engines across the globe in a measurable, predictable way. The BrightEdge SEO technology drives more than $3 billion in organic search revenue for leading brands across industries, including seven of the top 10 retailers, and Fortune 1000 leaders in e-commerce, technology, media, Internet, financial services and consumer goods. BrightEdge is based in San Mateo, CA and is privately held with financing from Battery Ventures, Altos Ventures and Illuminate Ventures.
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