Source: www.business2community.com
Google+ has risen astronomically since it was launched in 2011. It overtook social media giant Twitter in January 2013, and is now second only to Facebook in popularity. With over 700 million registered users, companies have a lot to gain by maintaining a page on the service. However, some Google+ pages are more popular than others.
Take a look at this list of 10 brands with great Google plus pages, and get some tips, ideas and insights for your own business.
#1. Toyota
Toyota has an excellent Google+ page. They share industry news, inspirational photos and innovative concepts with their followers, and update their page regularly. However, it’s the ‘Toyota Collaborator’ feature which really stands out. Using Google+ Hangouts,
- Users can invite friends to help them design and customise their new Toyota
- Up to five people can collaborate on the project, changing paint colours and wheel rims, discussing the options, and rotating the car to view it from different angles
- The interior of the car can be viewed through eye-tracking
- The finished car can be taken for a virtual test drive on Google Maps
#2. Cadbury
The layout of a Google+ page – wide and open – lends itself particularly well to visual content. Pages which recognise this tend to do better than those which rely solely on text. Cadbury has capitalised on this, ensuring that their page is full of large, bright, attractive images. Scrolling down the page reveals striking pictures of their various products, delicious-looking cakes and biscuits, and lashings of the distinctive Cadbury purple.
#3. Hugo Boss
As a high-end fashion retailer, Hugo Boss are experts in visual design. They’ve carried the clean lines and defined colours of their clothing to their Google+ page, which reads like the pages of a glossy magazine. The page isn’t an advert for the brand so much as an aspirational luxury lifestyle guide – and as a result has gained a large number of followers.
#4. H&M
H&M, another fashion brand, take a slightly different approach to their Google+ page. They operate in a different market to Hugo Boss, targeting a younger generation in search of affordable, throwaway fashion. Along with product pictures and photography, there are also ‘behind the scenes’ posts about recent photo shoots, video interviews with famous designers, and guides to upcoming fashion trends.
#5. Virgin
The ‘80/20’ rule dictates that only 20% of a company’s posts on social media should actually be about the products it sells. Virgin has embraced this advice fully, as it fits in with the brand’s lifestyle image. Building on Richard Branson’s charismatic brand of entrepreneurialism, Virgin’s Google+ page offers followers a mix of inspirational posts, interviews and debates. Part of the page’s popularity inevitably lies with having Richard Branson as a CEO, but the 80/20 rule also plays a large role.
