The New York-based exchange traded fund (ETF) issuer Global X Funds launched a new ETF on the NASDAQ this week. The Global X Social Media Index ETF (SOCL) gives investors the ability to participate in the performance of the Solactive Social MediaIndex which tracks the performance of companies active in the Social Media industry.

These days, almost everybody uses social media -- a life without it seems inconceivable!. People use social networks for maintaining contacts, for research or for other leisure activities; companies use them to increase their awareness level. “Social media”, which are forums, social networks (e.g. XING, Facebook), wiktionaries like Wikipedia, photo-, music-, video- or document-sharing-portals (e.g. YouTube, MyVideo), as well as review portals (e.g. QYPE, Idealo, or ciao!) have become more prominent. This trend of new online networks and platforms has led to a shift in the way people interact and communicate. Companies have more opportunities; from direct contact with new target groups, marketing and sales, and even customer involvement in the development of new products and services. Meanwhile nearly 70 per cent of all companies use “social media”. Facebook, for instance, has already made it clear how important “social media” is for investors. Experts estimate the
market value of Facebook of more than $33.7 billion. This is more than the value of well established companies like Ebay or Yahoo. Both private households and enterprises will invest more in social media prospectively as increasing gains are expected for companies which are actively advertising and interact in the social media platforms as well as companies who run these platforms (e.g. Xing, Facebook etc.).

The Solactive Social Media Index includes a minimum of 20 and a maximum of 50 constituents, active in the social media industry. The Index is calculated as a total return index and published in USD. The index is adjusted semi-annually and weighted according to free float market cap. A capping mechanism makes sure that the weight of a single index component does not exceed 10 percent. Index components that are not “pure-play” social media companies but have planned to grow that business area substantially are capped at 4.75%. As of November 2011 the index consists of 25 members.

Steffen Scheuble, CEO Structured Solutions AG, comments: „Given the explosive growth in social media adoption and advertising revenues, we offer investors an innovative benchmark to the social media sector with this index.”

“We are very pleased to be working with Structured Solutions. With this new ETF we expand our range of products to special opportunity ETFs where Structured Solutions is a strategic partner due to their large line-up of innovative indices,” says Global X Funds CEO Bruno del Ama.

The Indices are calculated every trading day between 09:00 am and 10:30pm (CET) and published on the website
www.solactive.com as well as through data vendors.