Big Money recently released The Big Money Facebook 50, a ranking of the brands that are currently making the best use of Facebook. Various metrics—including fan numbers, page growth, frequency of updates, creativity as determined by a panel of judges, and fan engagement—were factored into each page's score and ultimate rank on the list.

Coca-Cola, Starbucks, Disney, Victoria's Secret and iTunes round out the top five. James Ledbetter notes that contests and other promotional activities drove the success of most of the list members.

While I'm really excited to see a list like this put together I'm a bit disappointed that the listings don't actually link to the respective fan pages. So, I decided to look up ap few of these fan pages and see what I think works about them. What's great about social media is what works for one brand can usually easily be transferable to another.

• Buffalo Wild Wings (#48): asks questions - that are fan based and have nothing to do with wings, such as "Who's the better quarterback in tonight's game?" and a few that are BWW specific "Got a favorite sauce? Let's hear it!"
• Taco Bell (#47): posts promotions with photos - people like photos when they are being sold to.
• Audi (#44): asks for feedback "Automaker Audi seeks out fan feedback. It hosted a campaign encouraging fans to discuss what its next car should look like, and the company recently posted a survey asking fans what they wanted from the page."
• Target (#43): got fans involved in giving back - Target hosted a two-week “Bulls eye Gives” campaign, during which fans could vote for which charity they thought most deserved Target's donations.
• Harley-Davidson (#42): asks fans for photos - Harley has a great custom landing page on their fan page and has over 10,000 fan submitted photos
• CNN (#33): integrates with their website - CNN utilizes Facebook Connect to allow fans to add comments via CNN.com or from their fan page.
• Louis Vuitton (#32): carries the brand imagery forward - Louis Vuitton has a beautifully designed Welcome tab on their fan page that's a great compliment to their already strong branding.
  
• Disney/Pixar (#21): utilizes a lot of video - it's no surprise that the animation giant would post frequent videos.
• Adidas (#15): customizes for the fans - "Recognizing its international fan base, sports retailer Adidas occasionally posts updates in languages other than English."
• Dunkin' Donuts (#12) : features their fans - "While most fan pages use corporate logos as their profile pictures, the doughnut and coffee retailer uses the space to honor the winner of its “Fan of the Week” contest." I love this idea for the multifamily industry. Pet of the week/resident of the week/business of the week are all possibilities.
• Redbull (#9): remembers not to take themselves too seriously - Redbull gets their fans involved by creating games. They recently had a fan scavenger hunt.
• Chick-Fil-A (#8): has a lot of pictures of cows - ooh is that just us that likes that?
• iTunes (#5): takes votes - iTunes creates weekly polls to get user feedback
• Victoria Secret (#4): promotes their other advertisements - Victoria Secret utilizes their fan page as a way to promote their texting advertising program, their mobile site and other traditional advertisements.
• Starbucks (#2): gives away free stuff - hey you may not be Starbucks but you can give away free pastries to people who come by and visit your leasing office.
• Coca-Cola (#1): brings it all together - Coca-Cola integrates twitter, youtube, fan photos and videos all in one fun interactive place.

Is your favorite big brand fan page on this list? What have you learned from that fan page?

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Elysa Rice is Ellipse Communication's Emerging Media Consultant. Ellipse is celebrating 10 years providing websites and software to the multifamily industry.