Google+ Closes Branded Page Gap As Major Corporations Spread Their Social Bets

SAN MATEO, Calif., July 31, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- According to the new SocialShare Report from BrightEdge, the global leader in enterprise SEO, social network Google+ continues to generate brand presence momentum and climb closer to Facebook and Twitter brand page volumes, yet struggles to reach the same user engagement levels posted by Facebook and Twitter.

In the past two months, the number of people following the top 100 brands rose 54 percent, from 7.9M to 12.2M. This is much lower than the 1,400 percent growth seen between December 2011 and February 2012, and the 150 percent growth between February and May 2012, but not unexpected given the larger base of Google+ users.

Three out of four of the top brands have joined the Google+ bandwagon. Notable gold label brands that recently launched Google+ pages include Visa, Wells Fargo and fashion design giant Hermes. H&M and Toyota broke the 1M followers mark on the platform just ahead of Google's own G+ page, Red Bull, BMW, Nissan and Mercedes-Benz are coming close to that milestone. The Top 10 brands on Google+ now has a distinct auto flavor with new entrants Toyota, BMW, Nissan, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche accounting for 50 percent of the followers.

The BrightEdge report also offered insight on Google's continued effort to integrate Google+ into their organic search results. More than 30 percent of brands with Google+ pages have these pages show up in search results six times higher than reported in February. As for engagement, despite the rise in number of brands on Google+, less than 30 percent of Top 100 brands are promoting links to Google+ pages on their website.

"The exponential increase in Google+ pages showing up in search results means consumers are starting to engage with brands more regularly on the platform and vice versa," said Jim Yu, CEO of BrightEdge. "However there is still much higher adoption on Facebook and Twitter, whose offerings some feel include deeper engagement models which they have built and matured over time, thanks to their earlier start and sustained investment.  Brands need to continue to assess and adjust how they leverage all of the social signals to capture the digital engagement and sales they're looking for."

BrightEdge's monthly SocialShare Report examines and analyzes the homepages of the world's top brand sites. The analysis seeks to measure and assess the impact, growth and utilization of social tools by the world's most popular brands. BrightEdge's SocialShare Report offers a  periodic snapshot of the impact social strategies have on SEO and how they drive new value for both marketing campaigns and consumers.

Please visit http://www.brightedge.com/social-share-july-2012  to view and download the full report.

About BrightEdge
BrightEdge is the global leader in enterprise SEO, helping more than 2,000 of the world's largest brands stay ahead in the rapidly evolving Internet landscape. BrightEdge S3 harnesses the power of analytics on big-data to drive revenue from web sites, search engines and social networks across the globe in a measurable, predictable way. BrightEdge is based in San Mateo, CA with offices in New York City and London.

For more information about BrightEdge, please visit www.brightedge.com, friend us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/seoplatform or follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/brightedge.

SOURCE BrightEdge