Google+ brand pages were introduced on November 7, and within 10 days a majority – 61% – of the top 100 brands worldwide had a presence on the (relatively) new social network. However, so far these top 100 brand pages on Google+ have accrued only 147,000 followers in total, with the Google+ brand page responsible for 65,000 of that number. How does this compare to Facebook, and what is the outlook for brands on Google+?
Just 12% of of the top 100 brands link to their Google+ pages from the company homepage, while 53% of those brands have a link to their Facebook page on the company site, according to a new study from BrightEdge. And almost all – 93% – of the 100 brands have a page on Facebook.
While it’s impressive that so many brands have chosen to create a presence on Google+ within a short period of time, these brands are not finding much of a following. The 147,000 followers for Google+ brand pages pales in comparison to just under 300 million fans (for these same brands) on their Facebook pages. For example, Amazon.com has just 8500 fans on Google+vs. the brand’s nearly two million fans on Facebook.
Other highlights from the report:
- No brand other than Google had more than 50,000 Google+ fans
- Over two dozen of the top 100 brands had zero Google+ fans at the time of the report (but many hadn’t even posted regular content yet)
- Brands with Google+ pages performed better than average on Google search (slightly higher than Facebook brand pages)
According to Search Engine Watch, the search results clearly indicate “that Google places more weight on businesses and websites employing various Google properties.”
Brands and users are clearly not going to abandon Facebook anytime soon, but is having a Google+ presence worth it? Will the number of followers rise steadily as brands start to post more content and users begin to engage?
