Since launching its Pages product for businesses last November, Google+ has tried to get mainstream brands to adopt the platform. Up until recently, the most popular brands on Google+ happened to be owned by the company itself, which wasn’t a very good sign of adoption.

It looks like brands were just waiting to see how things went with Google’s social network, as a recent study by analytics firm Simply Measured shows that some of the world’s biggest brands are now ruling the plus-waves.

The study, which focuses solely on the top brands using pages on Google+, gives us a glimpse into how Google will be able to reel in more advertisers and brands to use its social platform, as the engagement numbers are rather impressive.

The top categories of brands on Google+ still show a slight shift towards geekiness, but beverages, apparel, and restaurants are surging.

Based on how many times a brand has been circled, here are the top companies using Google+:

A deeper dive by Simply Measured shows that the companies who are doing the best on the platform are the ones who are posting interesting and interactive content. The best way to get attention on any public social network is to share interesting things:

The number one brand according to this report is H&M, which is enjoying increased consumer attention since its Super Bowl ad featuring a scantily clad David Beckham. If you visit the brand’s Google+ page, you’ll see that they leverage its visual content extremely well, which makes sense considering H&M is a fashion company:

You can read through Simply Measured’s entire report at your leisure, but what I’ve learned from pouring over this data as well as my own experience on the platform is that the mainstream appeal for Google+ is starting to see an upward turn. This is a moment that brands can still get in on the ground floor with Google+ and become dominating companies on the platform.

We told you way back in November that it was a no-brainer to get your brand on Google+, tell us in the comments how it’s going for you!

What if you could get rewards towards future purchases, just by sharing what you have in your closet already? Zappos founder Nick Swinmurn has launched a new site to do just that. It’s called RNKD, and it wants you to show the world what kind of clothing and accessories you already own.

Even though the site launched last month and is still in beta, RNKD shared some extremely interesting stats with us that show a growing community for the premise. You might think that something like RNKD is just for the ladies, but the company tells us that 46% of users are male. They’re seeing some eye-popping engagement too, with users sharing 26 items each on average.

The idea is pretty brilliant when you think about it, if people share the items that they already have, then the site will known exactly what brands to partner with and what deals to offer to its user base. RNKD says that 2,000 different brands have been uploaded to the site so far.

The most popular brands on the site are Nike, Ralph Lauren, Express, and H&M. With this type of data, RNKD can do some serious damage in the social shopping space.

Show me yours, I’ll show you mine

Just getting deals based on what you have already purchased is interesting enough, but being able to share the contents of your closets with others takes it to another level. Each user gets a profile, and that profile shows all of the items that they have uploaded.

You can search through the items by type, brand, or the store that they bought it from. One neat feature is a quick breakdown of items by category so if you were holiday shopping, you’d be able to see the gaps in your friends wardrobe.

You can upload your items on the site, or use RNKD’s iOS and Android apps.

Reward me!

Here’s where things get interesting on RNKD. The more you share, the more chances you have to win rewards. The rewards or none other than Zappos gift certificates. Makes sense, since RNKD’d creator is the founder. The site sets up fun little categories like “Most Improved” and “Best Watch Collection” and rewards its users with gift certificates to buy more stuff. Pretty genius. You can even get badges for the types of things you share, cementing your place as a top brand maven.

If you’re really into fashion, you can get lost for hours on this site. RNKD has done a really awesome job of making everything clickable and shareable, so you can share something from someone else’s closet on Facebook or Twitter.

We’re told that of the items uploaded, the average user shares 12 different brands & 9 different stores, so I have to imagine that partnerships with these big brands are coming soon. It’s the perfect audience to share deals and exclusives with, and since they’re showing what they have in their closet already, we know that they like to buy.

➤ RNKD