SEO firm BrightEdge is reporting that 61 percent of world’s top 100 brands have already created Google+ pages. As we reported last week, Google launched “Pages” for Google+ to allows brands, products, companies, businesses, and organizations to build their very own tailored Google+ presence.
Channeling Facebook Pages, Google+ Pages offers brands and businesses a similar experience to that of individual Google+, in that brands can place people into Circles to share content with that select group, launch video hangouts to have face-to-face conversations with their customers, and it all works through the site’s mobile app (you can read our in-depth comparison of Google+ and Facebook Pages here).
For basis of comparison, 94 percent of the Top 100 brands have a presence on Facebook. BrightEdge says that only 12 percent of the brands that created these pages displayed a link to them on their home page. About 53 percent of the Top 100 brands display a link on their home page to their Facebook page. And brands appear to be having mixed success at building social networks around their Google+ presence. In fact, Google had the largest fan contingent of any brand on Google+, having attracted more than 65,000 fans.
But other consumer brand stalwarts like Coke, McDonalds and Verizon had only dozens of fans (but have millions of Facebook fans). In fact, a review of Facebook and Google+ properties for all 100 brands showed a collective total of almost 300 million Facebook fans for these top brands, compared to approximately 148,000 Google+ followers for these same brands.
Of course, in Google search, Google+ brand pages seem to be performing well. The BrightEdge analysis showed Google+ pages on average appeared in the top 12 Google search results for the corresponding brand, while the brand’s Facebook pages on average appeared in the top 13 or 14 listed results.
Only one Top 100 global brand, Marlboro, has no social media presence on either Facebook or Google+. And Microsoft is one of largest brands that has a Facebook page but no Google+ presence.
Clearly, it’s still early for brand interaction and Google+. Yesterday, Google announced a pilot program that will allow businesses and brands to manage their Google+ Pages using a number of third-party applications, including Buddy Media, Context Optional, Hearsay Social, HootSuite, Involver, and Vitrue. These integrations should help brands further their presence on Google+ and increase engagement.
For background, BrightEdge’s SaaS allows marketers prioritize SEO campaigns based on forecasted revenue, execute coordinated SEO strategies across their entire company and tie everything to clearly defined business metrics. The product also comes with reporting tools that lets large enterprise analyze how their organic search performance stacks up against that of their competitors, and how it can be improved over time. Since launching to the public in 2010, BrightEdge has gained a significant clientele, including seven of the top ten Fortune 1000 retailers. Other customers include Symantec and VMware. BrightEdge has raised $6.5 million in venture funding.