Social media products and websites continue to gain popularity in use and value in connecting people. Almost daily they become more powerful tools for many organizations to engage their customers better. So more and more companies are using social media because they know their customers are too. In fact that's often the first reason companies have for diving into Twitter and other social media: to discover what people are saying about them.

Recently, the May 2009 edition of the Buzz Study was released. It ranks the top 50 brands according to social media conversations (or "buzz"). It's interesting because it tells us what brands people are talking about using social media. If your company is one of these brands, you need to be aware of these conversations.

After looking at this study I did a little number crunching and created another ranking, based on this data. It ranks the top segments being talked about in the social media space for May 2009. Looking at them this way, the top 10 segments in this Buzz Study ranking are (in order):

Top 10 Social Media Buzz Segments

1. Web applications
2. Media
3. Software (tie)
3. Auto (tie)
4. Mobile phone (tie)
4. Gaming products (tie)
4. Sports (tie)
5. Technology (tie)
5. Consumer electronics (tie)
6. Government (tie)
6. Computer hardware(tie)
6. Online retail (tie)
7. Telecom (tie)
7. Entertainment (tie)
7. Clothing (tie)

(Note: This only ranks segments within the top 50 company data in the Buzz Study. If you analyzed all the companies being talked about in the social media space you could very well have a different ranking.)

This makes sense given how new social media and its usage is. But will be worth watching over the next several years. We'll see more segments that are less technology intense move up in the rankings. As that happens it will indicate a more widespread adoption of social media by customers and companies.