Google+ brand pages: 20 of the best photo strips

by Vikki Chowney 17 February 2012 10:30 9 comments Print

Google+ is growing rapidly: business pages are taking hold, and the platform is becoming a viable marketing channel for larger brands at least.

It's definitely short of room to manoeuvre when it comes to how your profile looks however. Each page is locked down to the same structure (for now), and so at the moment there's not a lot you can do.

Thinking creatively is therefore tough, in fact, it focuses almost solely around the photo strip that resembles Facebook's Timeline banner. I'm not talking features (rich content, engaging conversation and hangouts galore just about cover that), I'm talking design.

As such, we've compiled 20 examples of brands that have managed to stand out from the crowd with the little they have to work with.

Reader comments (9)

David Smythe
12:01PM on 17th February 2012

I liked the one where they cut up the wide picture.
Steve Gorney
12:07PM on 17th February 2012

Well, this is inspiring and just added another task to do on my list. I have ideas!
Mat Oram
Head of Customer Care at Peto

2:37PM on 17th February 2012

McLaren one is very clever (or should that be simple and effective). How often things get too clever and miss the mark.
Malcolm Slade Platinum
SEO Project Manager at Epiphany Solutions Limited

2:40PM on 17th February 2012

I literally just sent an email to a client who wanted to see some examples of "good" Google+ business pages.

Luckily I used Burberry and Red Bull.

Now forwarded this on as well :O)
Vikki Chowney
Head of community at TMW

2:50PM on 17th February 2012

Glad to be of help Malcolm. It's slim pickings, but some brands are at least attempting to do something clever :)
James Gurd Silver
Owner at Digital Juggler

3:15PM on 17th February 2012

Hi Vikki,

Some great examples there of how people can make Google+ more visually appealing. Love the Muppets, nice sense of humour.

There's an old post from Mashable on this for personal profiles, not brand per se. Some good examples for small business/freelancers though.
http://mashable.com/2011/07/21/google-plus-profile-hacks/

I really like the Francois Bacconnet one - simple but gets your attention.

thanks
james
Paul Lewis
3:44PM on 17th February 2012

I am looking into creating my organizations Google+ page and this has given me a good insight into effective design in a constrained area.

Thanks

Paul Lewis
Vikki Chowney
Head of community at TMW

4:42PM on 17th February 2012

Nice one Alec :)
Ross
3:50AM on 20th February 2012

If google are going to astro-turf something that was actually a hack on the *real* social network months ago, even permitting animated gifs, why not just put a banner ad up already... why bother with the tiles

Talk about fake-news...