H&M becomes Google+'s most followed brand page

Forget Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Nike, Disney, or even Google. The one company that people have flocked to more than anyone else in the search giant's increasingly massive social network is discount clothes retailer H&M. Sure, that Super Bowl ad featuring David Beckham in his underwear must have built a lot of brand excitement among at least part of the online population, but what is the real driving factor behind H&M catapulting ahead of so many other iconic companies?

Granted, Google+ is still a nascent platform. To demonstrate, even though H&M is the most popular brand page on the network, its number of fans (or "circlers") is just 456,365. Compare that to, say, Coca-Cola, which may fall behind on Google+ (326,096 circlers) but has nearly 39,000,000 fans on Facebook. Nevertheless, it's a testament to H&M's marketing that it has managed to surpass so many other well-established names.

The clothing chain has apparently linked to its Google+ page more than any other brand on the network, with one exception. The only one with more Google+ spamming is Ferrari, but that company only has 8,027 circlers, proving that just massively posting links to your social networking page isn't enough to generate interest. H&M is doing something right. At least for now. Its hip and modern appeal is perfect for the generation that's most likely to sing up for Google+. If and when Google ever makes its online network as ubiquitous as Facebook, we could see a power shift.

[via Mashable]