Brands, don’t abandon that Google+ account yet.

A new study of the top brands on Google’s social network found that their presence is greatly expanding—and so is engagement among users (dubbed “circlers,” because “circle” is the Google+ equivalent to a “like” or follow).

Simply Measured, which compiles and presents social data, evaluated the Google+ presence of companies from the Interbrand 100 list. The study found that 64 percent of these brands have an active Google+ page, and 22 percent have pages with more than 100,000 circlers.

This graph shows the steady increase in the number of circles for these brand pages:



Tech pundits heralded Google+ as a challenger to Facebook’s dominance in the social networking space, but as interest waned for the nascent social network tech media began ringing its death knell (or at least its irrelevant knell).

The numbers from Simply Measured suggest that Google+ is anything but irrelevant in the brand space. Here are nine data points from the study against which brands can benchmark their performance on the social network:

Brands are posting more frequently. Among the top brands on Google+, 43 percent post more than three times a week, according to the study. That’s a significant boost from February when a mere 16 percent were posting with such frequency.

The popular brands are getting more popular. The rich get richer—in real life and on Google+. The top 22 brands, as ranked by number of circlers, are far outpacing the companies further down the list. For example, Armani, which is No. 22, has 111,000 circlers, while No. 23 Adidas has a mere 26,000. “As this continues, it is going to become even more challenging for other brands, especially those without a presence, to catch up,” according to Simply Measured.

Automotive and electronics are the most popular industries. Internet services has dropped to the No. 4 most popular sector on Google+. Media is near the bottom; the transportation is the bottom.



Luxury is a booming industry on Google+. In terms of circler count, the luxury industry has climbed to No. 3 on the list of industries on the site. And you can see evidence of that climb in the list of most circled brands on Google+: Ferrari is No. 1; Gucci is No. 3, and Burberry No. 4. (These brands could fall under automotive and apparel; however, they’re on the high end of each category in terms of price).

Engagement among circlers is up. It has spiked 112 percent since February.

[Learn more about Google+ for business with this on-demand training session]

Photos get the most engagement from circlers. Among the four types of content brands share on Google+—video, article, photo, post—photos attract the most engagement by a long shot. Posts garner the least.



The best day to post for increased engagement is Wednesday. Saturday and Sunday are the worst days, by far.

[READ: The best times to post to post to Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr]

The best time to post is between 9 am and 10 am. Engagement peaks at this time and tapers off by 4 pm.



H&M is sharing the most; Armani is attracting the most circlers. The designer brand is grabbing nearly 5,000 new circlers on average each day. Meanwhile, H&M has 740 total posts (at the time of the study).

Read takeaways from the study here, and see a number of charts depicting the results here. Simply Measured also has a free tool which brands can use to evaluate their Google+ presence. You can find that here.

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