We’ve been writing a lot about Google My Business lately and with good reason – it kinda works when it comes to getting good results online!
While other social platforms such as Facebook & Instagram continue to squeeze us for cash to beat their toughening algorithm updates, ever since it rolled out the ability to do a post on it mid last year, Google My Business has become a great place to post because you have a high chance of indexing on Google, and fast and the posts lasts for 7 days!
The only downer about the whole thing to date has been the fact Google My Business doesn’t link in with our usual go to social media scheduling tool – Hootsuite – which means we’ve had to make posts ‘natively’ – in other words direct on the platform itself. Which is a bit painful when you are a fan of scheduling. Not to mention that we’ve been getting jack of Hootsuite lately… with regular scheduling issues occurring with our Instagram clients through this platform.
Now before you say ‘Hang on, I’m sure I can already post something to Google from my Hootsuite account’ well yes you can, to date that’s been your Google+ page, which is different to your Google My Business page.
What is Google My Business?
Google My Business is a free, easy-to-use tool that allows local businesses to manage their online presence on Google Search and Google Maps. Designed for businesses that serve customers at a particular location, or that serve customers within a designated service area, by verifying and editing your business information, you can help customers find you as well as connect with customers by posting updates, adding photos, replying to reviews, and more. It looks like this (and yes you can download the free app on your phone to really get busy on it):
What is Google+?
Until only recently, Google+ was a tool that allowed individuals and organisations to share, discover, and engage with relevant and interesting content. You could share posts with your followers on Google+,… use Collections to make it easy to find the posts you and others wanted to see and use Communities to connect with others that share the same interests as you do.
***NEWSFLASH*** In early October 2018 Google announced that it is shutting down Google+ altogether, conceding to low consumer adoption and also following a security breach. A software bug was discovered that gave developers access to private profile data of over 500,000 users.
This gives even more weight to diverting all attention to Google My Business instead of Google+. But maybe update your username/password combo from that you used on Google+ and update your Google and any online credentials regularly just to be safe huh? 😉
Image compliments of TechCrunch.
Ok but what were you saying? That I should be posting on Google My Business regularly?
In short, YES.
The good news is, for the time being at least, each post on Google My Business lasts 7 days, so technically you could get away with posting once every week which is not too arduous. And you can choose to post directly on the platform, or if you want to get busy, you may like to look to use a scheduling tool.
But if Hootsuite is buggy and doesn’t even allow you to schedule posts to Google My Business at the moment, what are your options?… We’ve searched high and low however and turned up just a few who will allow posting in advance on Google My Business, with associated fees and trial offers. Know of others? Let us know of them so we can add to this article for all to enjoy!
Social Report
By connecting your Google My Business account to your Social Report, you’ll receive access to both direct scheduling to Google My Business, as well as detailed analytics on the various users that interact with your Google presence (hint: potential customers).
Sendible
Sendible’s integration with Google My Business makes it extremely easy for agencies to schedule, publish and oversee Google My Business Posts for multiple clients at once. If you’re already a Sendible customer, this feature is now available on all plans. If you’re new to Sendible, simply start a free 30-day trial today.
dbaPlatform
The dbaPlatform features a post publishing tool that allows you to create, schedule, and publish posts for multiple Google My Business locations. When creating a post in the dbaPlatform, you have all of the same fields available in Google My Business including a description, photo, and multiple button options. Once you add all of the post content, you can schedule to post for a specific date and time down to the minute. See more here.
So what can I even post on Google My Business?
1. Article Posts
Article posts feature both article preview text and an image taken from the article itself. A link and a “Learn More” button is also provided at the end of the post that increase chances of a viewer clicking (and thus driving traffic to the shared article).
2. Image Posts
These are simple enough. Do note, however, that your images will look best on Google if they meet the following standards:
– Format: JPG or PNG
– Size: Between 10KB and 5MB
– Minimum resolution: 720 px tall, 720 px wide
3. Video posts
You may also upload videos (10mb limit per file) or connect an external media storage to access your videos directly without having to manually upload them.… Note: GIF posts are not currently supported in Google My Business.
Ideas for posts on Google My Business
If you’ve been to one of our social media strategy sessions or engaged in online training, ideas will start flowing. If not, let us give you a few quickfire ideas:
- Share daily specials or current promotions that encourage new and existing customers to take advantage of your offers.
- Promote events and tell customers about upcoming happenings at your store.
- Showcase your top products and highlight new arrivals.
- Choose one of the available call-to-actions to help you connect with customers directly from a Google Post: give them a one-click path to make a reservation, sign up for a newsletter, learn more about latest offers, or even buy a specific product from your client’s website.
So what are you waiting for?!
If you’re looking to attract more web traffic and customers for your clients, then Google My Business Posts are a great way to do that.
If you’re running an agency and you don’t currently manage your clients’ Google My Business presence, the new Posts feature is a massive opportunity for you to deliver value to your customers, in addition to any other SEO or social media activities you may be performing for them.
Need a quote on how we can help you create your own Google My Business strategy, page or series of posts? Talk to us!
Need help along the way?
Google Plus Support… … then Click “Help Forum”