New York-based L2 released its 2012 “Facebook IQ Index” last week. The report is compiled by taking into account four factors: size and growth of likes (35 percent); fan reaction and interaction (35 percent); the brand’s content, responsiveness and innovation (20 percent) and integration of Facebook across all digital platforms (10 percent).

 

The brands are scored based on this criteria and ranked into one of four classes: “Genius,” those that scored 140 points and above, “Gifted” (110 to 139), “Average” (90 to 109), “Challenged” (70 to 89) and “Feeble” (less than 70).

 

Overall, watch and jewelry brands were dispersed evenly throughout the report, with seven ranking as Gifted, seven ranking as Average, eight ranking as Challenged and five ranking as Feeble. A slight improvement from L2’s 2011 Facebook analysis, when five brands were Gifted, and six each fell into the other three categories.

 

In addition, two of the industry’s most iconic brands, Bulgari and Cartier, showed marked year-over-year improvement, ascending from Challenged to Gifted.

 

(A total of 23 jewelry brands were included in last year’s report while 27 were evaluated this year. Baume & Mercier, TAG Heuer, Officine Panerai and Longines were the four additions.)

 

In the 2012 report, a new leader in social media-or at least in Facebook-emerged among the watch and jewelry brands.

 

Luxury watchmaker IWC Schaffhausen scored 138 points and ranked No. 5 out of the 100 brands analyzed. It unseated Swarovski as the top-ranking industry player included in the industry.

 

“Stirring ‘Pilot Aptitude Test’ game app(lication) catapults watchmaker to top of category,” the report states. The app garnered a 20 percent increase in likes for IWC Schaffhausen and an addition of 45,861 new fans in the 10 days following its release, a rate 10 times the average for watch and jewelry brands.

 

Also ranking as gifted were Swarovski at No. 7 with a score of 131, followed by Pandora at No. 10 with 127, Bulgari at No. 12 with 126 and Tiffany & Co. at No. 18 with 123.

 

The five “Feeble” brands were Van Cleef & Arpels with a score of 64, Rolex with 55, Baccarat with 54, De Beers with 52 and Patek Philippe, which ranked last with a score of 27.

 

Patek Philippe and Rolex are the only two brands out of the 100 included in the study that have yet to get on Facebook, though they do have unofficial pages created by fans.

 

Ranking No. 1 overall was Macy’s with a score of 161. “This Timeline pioneer’s page is big, growing and well-integrated across channels; constantly updated programming sets the bar,” the study states.

 

Also ranking as genius were cosmetics retailer Sephora, with a score of 148, followed by Lancôme Paris and Michael Kors, both at 146. These were the only four brands to achieve Genius ranking.