Google+ opened for businesses on 7 November, causing a rush of activity but to date only 26 of the FTSE 100 companies have corporate Google+ pages, the majority of which are not active.

15 of the FTSE 100 have uploaded a profile or ‘page’ picture and just nine have any information on their page other than a link to their website. Outside of the 26, some, like Reckitt Benckisser and Next have a Google+ profile but haven’t adopted a business page.

The difference between the number of companies present and the number which are active is perhaps due to companies wanting to claim the space before the domain is grabbed by another. Kingfisher, for example have been beaten to the spot and the ‘Kingfisher’ page simply reads, ‘Buy this page for $1000’.

Only five FTSE 100 companies have an active Google+ page, one of which is Aggreko, a major player in temporary power and temperature control solutions. Guy Redmond of digital marketing at Aggreko says, ‘We don’t have a social media strategy; we are just using social media to listen at the moment. We are present on the site partly to avoid the squatter situation and partly to get a feel for Google+ and the differences between profiles and pages- we could use the channel later on.’

The other four companies to have created any posts on their Google+ pages are Aviva, Burberry, Carnival and WPP.

On December 15, Communicate Magazine is holding a morning conference entitled Google+ for Businesses and Brands. Please follow the link or get in touch for more information.