Google+ still problematic for most brands

Even though expectations may have been high initially, it would appear that Google+ is not exactly the platform to build on for most brands. While the growth in Google+ users following brands may have been explosive in the last few months for the top 100 companies, (up from 222,000 to 3.1 million- an explosion of more than 1400%) the top ten brands are responsible for nearly all that growth. Just a mere handful of brands accrued over 3 million followers. These big gainers include Amazon, eBay, Starbucks, and Coca-Cola. That means that the remaining 100,000 followers are distributed across the companies that make up the 11^th through the 100^th spot. 

What that means is that the 100 million people that are currently using Google+ are not actively looking to engage with brands at this time. Whether this means that these companies have not found their Google+ niche yet or whether customers simply are simply not using Google+ to engage businesses remains to be seen.

As of today, no reliable qualitative studies of Google+ or engagement data has been published that would make it clear why the users of Google’s social platform are not actively engaging companies by putting some of their favorite brands in circles. It is interesting to note that some of the biggest brands in the world such as Apple, Microsoft, and Goldman Sachs have yet to engage their customer base in relates to Google+. While Google’s social platform may show promise, it still needs to find a way to actively engage its audience like Facebook has clearly shown it can do in the past.