Brands continue to incorporate Google+ into their social media campaigns

While Google+ reaches only a sliver of the audience of Facebook – approximately 40 million compared to 800 million – many businesses are increasingly incorporating the young social network into their social media marketing efforts, a new report from BrightEdge Technologies suggests.

Now, more than three-quarters of global brands (77 percent) have launched a Google+ pages as of December 19, up 19 percent over the 61 percent that had done so a month earlier. Google’s social network still trails behind Facebook, which is leveraged by 93 percent of global brands.

What’s interesting to note is that a number of businesses have a Google+ page but not a Facebook profile, suggesting the social network may offer distinct benefits over its larger counterpart. Most obviously, Google has a Google+ page but not a Facebook presence. However, other companies such as IBM and Vodafone Group are in a similar position. Meanwhile, brands such as Marlboro have no presence on either network.

Moreover, businesses are also getting more active with their Google+ networks and extending their reach through Circles.

“This month the number of people in circles with the top 100 brands increase by over 50 percent, from 147k to 222k. Google continues to have the largest fan contingent of any brand on Google+, having attracted more than 77,000 in circles,” the report notes.

Major brands, including Starbucks, H&M and Pepsi, followed closely behind. Starbucks nearly quadrupled its Google+ Circle follower counts, while H&M and Pepsi crossed the 20,000-person mark.

BrightEdge suspects the recent surge in Google+ adoption stems from the company’s decision to implement brand profiles into its results page. This provides brands with a noticeable bump in their search engine rankings, translating into more exposure and visits to their small business websites. Moreover, the placement of Google+ pages allows companies to display promotional messages straight on the results page.

“Placing Google+ on the search results page is a play from Microsoft’s book, embedding a popular new product on an existing market dominating one,” the research added. “Similar to when Internet Explorer was bundled with Windows, BrightEdge predicts tremendous growth for Google+ in the coming months.”

Is Google+ winning the feature war?

Facebook currently gives small businesses a much broader reach due to its extensive user base, but many marketers are hedging their bets with Google+ in the long haul. According to an internal memo circulated at advertising firm Omnicom’s Resolution Media, Google’s social network has a number of progressive features that could win consumers over permanently.

Conversely, the agency claims Facebook has lagged behind and is also implementing new features that consumers aren’t as fond of. Take, for example, the recently rolled out real-time news feed. Many users have complained the feature is “stalkerish,” giving their friends too much information on what they are doing on the social network.

“Google+ has an improved design with muting and editing [capability for] posts,” MediaPost reports, citing the memo. “It seems so simple and yet, multiple redesigns and countless additions later, it still continues to be a hassle to edit a [Facebook] post if I mistype a word. One little typo and it calls for a completely new post. Deleting from a mobile device isn’t even an option.”

Does your organization use Google+ as a part of its social media marketing efforts? Would you consider leveraging it in the future?

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