Responding to Client Demand, Social Index Expands EMV Benchmarking to 15 Social Platforms

Bluesky, Discord, Reddit, Threads, and WhatsApp join the earned media value standard, alongside brand-specific EMV modeling tuned to a client's own data.

PASADENA, Calif., Aug. 26, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Ayzenberg Group today announced that Social Index, the earned media value (EMV) benchmarking standard it established in 2016, has expanded coverage from 10 social platforms to 15, adding Bluesky, Discord, Reddit, Threads, and WhatsApp. Social Index also introduced brand-specific EMV modeling for clients who contribute first-party data.

Audience attention has moved into community platforms and messaging apps faster than measurement has followed, leaving a growing share of earned engagement unpriced.

"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. "It would have been easy to publish a number for Discord in 2023, but not one anyone could defend in a budget meeting. Community and messaging platforms behave nothing like a public feed, and pretending otherwise would undercut the one thing Social Index is for: a value marketers can stand behind."

Why the delay, and what changed

Reach, engagement, and the value of a single earned impression can shift within a quarter, and differently by vertical and market. Social Index built for that volatility: its neural network models weigh thousands of dynamic parameters across channel, industry, and geography, recalibrating daily rather than using static rate cards.

Extending that architecture to closed and community-driven environments meant modeling engagement with no clean analogue in public feeds, such as server activity, thread depth, and closed-network sharing. The new channels join Facebook, Instagram, Instagram Story, Snapchat, X, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, Twitch, and Pinterest.

Brand-specific EMV

The modeling grows more complex, and its benchmarks higher in fidelity, when clients share their own performance data. Social Index calibrates against the brand's actual audience, content history, and conversion behavior to produce brand-specific benchmarks rather than category 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, the group's influencer practice. "When a client shares their performance data, we calibrate to their real audience and content, so the value is specific to them, not their category. For social and creator programs especially, that is the difference between a directional number and one a CEO will accept."

Availability

All 15 platforms are live now at earnedmediavalues.com. Brand-specific EMV modeling is available to enterprise clients; contact Social Index.

About Social Index

Social Index, a product of Ayzenberg Group's a.network, is an industry standard for measuring earned media value. Ayzenberg Group established one of the first standardized methodologies for pricing social media engagement in 2016. Powered by proprietary neural network models, it provides EMV benchmarks across 15 platforms and 9 verticals, updated daily, across North America, EMEA, and APAC. More than 3,000 companies use Social Index for measurement, reporting, and budget optimization. Platforms including Tagger by Sprout Social and Julius use Social Index EMV values. Learn more at earnedmediavalues.com.

Media Contact

Lauren Arevalo
Head of Growth, Ayzenberg Group
[email protected]

SOURCE Social Index