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Bluesky, Discord, Reddit, Threads and WhatsApp added to earned media value standard as brands seek more accurate measurement across community and messaging platforms
Ayzenberg Group today announced an expansion of Social Index, its earned media value (EMV) benchmarking standard, from 10 to 15 social and digital platforms.
The expanded Social Index now includes Bluesky, Discord, Reddit, Threads and WhatsApp, reflecting the growing importance of community-based platforms and messaging environments in how audiences engage with brands.
The company has also introduced brand-specific EMV modeling, allowing clients that provide first-party performance data to receive benchmarks calibrated to their own audiences, content and conversion behavior.
Measuring Earned Media Across Emerging Platforms
As consumer attention increasingly shifts toward private communities, discussion platforms and messaging applications, marketers face challenges in assigning value to engagement outside traditional public social feeds.
Ayzenberg Group said the latest Social Index expansion is designed to address this measurement gap by accounting for the distinct behaviors of community and messaging platforms.
“The industry asked for these channels for years, and we deliberately didn’t add them until we could measure them properly,” said Eric Ayzenberg, CEO of Ayzenberg Group.
The newly supported platforms join Facebook, Instagram, Instagram Stories, Snapchat, X, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, Twitch and Pinterest in the Social Index framework.
AI-Powered EMV Modeling
Social Index uses a neural-network-based modeling approach that evaluates thousands of changing variables across factors including channel, industry and geography.
Rather than relying on static rate cards, the system recalibrates daily to account for changes in audience reach, engagement and the value of earned impressions.
Extending the methodology to community and closed-network environments required the company to account for engagement signals that do not have direct equivalents in traditional public feeds, including server activity, thread depth and closed-network sharing.
Brand-Specific Earned Media Value
The company’s new brand-specific modeling capability allows clients to provide first-party data that can be incorporated into Social Index calculations.
The resulting benchmarks are designed around the individual brand’s actual audience, historical content performance and conversion behavior rather than relying solely on broader industry averages.
“A category benchmark tells you what earned media is worth for the average brand in your space, and no brand is average,” said Vincent Juarez, architect of Social Index and head of Ayzenberg Media and ION.
According to Ayzenberg Group, this approach can provide more precise measurement for social and creator marketing programs by connecting EMV calculations more closely to a brand’s real-world performance.
Creating a More Defensible Measurement Standard
The expansion comes as marketers increasingly seek consistent ways to compare earned media performance across a fragmented digital ecosystem.
By combining dynamic modeling with platform-specific engagement signals and, where available, brand-level performance data, Social Index aims to give marketers a more defensible framework for evaluating the business value of social and creator activity.
