Total earned social media impressions for the world’s largest consumer brands reached 38.0 billion in the third quarter of 2012, according to data released today by PQ Media (www.pqmedia.com), which specializes in emerging media research and analytics, and uberVU (www.ubervu.com, a social marketing platform for real-time end-to-end social media audience measurement. Apple placed third on the list.

According to the "Q3 2012 uberVU Leading Social Brand Report" earned social media impressions grew by double digits in both August and September. Global social media mentions split identically 55% male and 45% female in each month of the quarter, while averaging 42% from the U.S. and 58% from Rest-of-World for the period.

Thirty consumer brands achieved amplified social media reach, with each earning more than 350 million impressions and a SOV [share of voice] of 1% or greater. The Restaurants category ranked #1, with 10 brands earning a total of 9.4 billion IMPs. Tied for second were Consumer Technology and Automakers, each with 5 brands, earning 8.1 billion and 2.9 billion IMPs respectively.

Coke ranked number one on the list with over four million impressions. Samsung was second with 2.8 million impressions, followed by Apple with approximately 2.7 million impressions. Also in the top 10 were Amazon, Google, Starbucks, Wendy's, Burger King, McDonald's and Microsoft.