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.
1. Android
2. Angry Birds
3. BBC News
4. Burberry (with moving graphics that make the rain fall)
5. Chrome
6. Coca-Cola
7. DC Comics
8. Fox News
9. The Muppets
10. NASA
11. Nissan (with moving graphics that make the car appear to be moving)
12. Pepsi
13. Red Bull (with moving graphics that make the biker appear to jump into the shot)
14. Time magazine
15. Virgin
16. Vodafone McLaren
17. Wired
18. Wall Street Journal
19. Zagat
20. Zappos
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12:01PM on 17th February 2012
I liked the one where they cut up the wide picture.
12:07PM on 17th February 2012
Well, this is inspiring and just added another task to do on my list. I have ideas!
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.
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)
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 :)
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
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
Head of community at TMW
4:42PM on 17th February 2012
Nice one Alec :)
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...