If you're a brick-and-mortar business organization you're probably already familiar with the ups and downs of turning digital marketing into real foot traffic. Today, we're looking at one of the simplest and most directly ways to stay in affect with your customers: Google Business Contour (formerly known every bit Google My Business) posts.

Google serves 5 billion searches for "restaurants" alone every month. It'due south one of the offset places your customers look when they demand to find your opening hours, location, busy times, and latest news. And, just as crucially, Google is also where new and potential customers go to get a feel for your atmosphere, customer service, and offerings.

Different content for the other big social platforms, your Google Business Profile posts are designed for people who are already looking for y'all. You aren't competing with baby animals or scary headlines. You don't need to grab attending or pluck heartstrings. You lot just need to state the facts (preferably with excellent visuals and impeccable copy.)

Only once you lot've optimized your Google My Business profile with all the latest details, what's the side by side step? Is it worth the time and endeavor to include your Google Business organisation Profile in your social media calendar and social customer service strategy? The short answer is: probably.

The medium answer is: GMB is pretty much the opposite of, say, starting a YouTube channel. The rewards are loftier, just the time, know-how and costs involved are all low.

For the long answer, read on.

In this postal service we're going to wait at best practices for creating the best Google My Business concern posts to communicate directly with your customers, which translates to improving their experience and your bottom line at the same fourth dimension.

Bonus: Read the step-past-footstep social media strategy guide with pro tips on how to abound your social media presence.

How to post to Google Concern Profile

Google My Business posts are brusk and elementary updates for communicating with people who are actively looking for information virtually your business organization (or businesses like yours).

One of the reasons GMB posts are so important is because Google prioritizes quality data in its search results, and so making certain you're giving your customers what they desire may well meliorate your search ranking. For example, if you run an icecream store in Seattle, you'll have a higher likelihood of showing upwards in search results when someone search "water ice foam store Seattle".

Let'southward go through the steps for posting to your Google Business organisation Profile.

one. Prepare and optimize your GMB contour (if you haven't already)

Once you lot accept your Google Business Contour up and running, you can brand posts by signing in to Google My Business organization, downloading the Google My Business mobile app, or using Hootsuite to integrate your GMB strategy with your other social media marketing channels (we have more details on that in a chip).

2. Select the best blazon of mail service for your goals

In the menu, click Posts, and select your postal service type.

At the minimum, each GMB post features an epitome, text, and a clear telephone call-to-action. Some too include time constraints. Depending on your goals—is your summer patio open? are you hosting a book signing?—determine on one of these options:

  • What'due south New: Announcements and full general data about your business organization.
  • Events: List your alive or online events (your mail service will demand to include a start and end date and time).
  • Offers: Announce limited-time coupons, discounts, promotions, or sales (over again, you lot'll need to include a start and end date, and yous can also include a coupon code).
  • Products: These posts assistance you feature one or more of the products you have available in your Product tab (which you will need to set upwards separately.)

Notation: Every bit of spring 2020, GMB is besides offer a COVID-19 update tab where yous tin update your business organisation hours; adjusted service options (i.due east., curbside pickup? Takeaway only? Free delivery?); and other relevant social distancing measures.

3. Arts and crafts your post

GMB posts don't have to be flashy: chances are your audience is actively searching for the data you lot're offering. But some methods are better than others, and then hither are our best tips to go along in mind.

Text

While posts have 1500-grapheme limits, aim to keep things curt and direct here. The kickoff seven or 8 words will show up above the fold, and users have to click to read more than, so go your bulletin across as quickly every bit possible. Try to avoid going longer than 150-300 characters, unless you take a very skillful reason.

Pro tip: Hashtags are unnecessary and irrelevant on GMB, simply a few on-brand emojis can be a overnice touch.

Visuals

The photos and videos y'all upload for your posts should be professional-grade, or as near to it as you can manage.

An highly-seasoned portrait of your prize-winning croissandwich, or a moody golden-60 minutes bending on your vine wall may well exist the deciding factor for a new customer trying to cull betwixt you and the place downwardly the street. Showcase your absolute all-time in gild to turn searchers into customers. (Keep scrolling for Google My Business mail service image size guidelines.)

Call-to-activity

Google offers a range of CTA buttons. Options are varied and depend on your post type, but all the standards are represented: Larn More than, Club Online, Buy Now, etc.

You lot'll definitely want to ensure that y'all link to an effective (that is, seamless and scannable) landing page. If you're not linking to your ain page, ensure it's a site you trust, so that it won't chance running afoul of Google's content policy.

Pro Tip: Consider using UTM parameters for your links so y'all can mensurate how much of your site traffic is coming from Google, versus your other marketing efforts.

Date range

If you're listing an outcome or offer, y'all'll demand to specify the times and dates for which it's valid.

Pro Tip: According to Google, unless a post has a specific appointment range, all posts are archived later on 7 days.

4. Publish

Click Preview to see how your post will look, brand sure you re-create-edit and fine-tune it, and so get ahead and hit Publish. Your post volition show up in three places:

  • On mobile: the tabs labelled Updates o Overview on your company'southward Business concern Profile (in both Search and Maps)
  • On desktop: in the "From the Possessor" section of the Concern Profile (in both Search and Maps)

Google My Business websites (a.one thousand.a. those low-effort websites that Google will help you make if yous don't have your own)

5. Don't forget to bank check on your analytics

Unsurprisingly, Google has plenty of interesting insights for you to bank check out once yous've got some posts up and running. Take a expect at your post views and see how your customers are engaging with your contour. And so give them more of what they like.

Pro tip: Tackle quality as well as quantity. Co-ordinate to consumers, businesses that respond to reviews are one.7x more trustworthy than those that don't. And then ensure your digital customer support strategy is keeping an eye on your Google My Business organization reviews, along with your other social listening habits.

Can Hootsuite postal service to Google My Business?

Yes, Hootsuite can post What's New announcements to Google My Business organisation. The process is simple:

  1. Verify your Google My Business contour.
  2. In Hootsuite's App Directory, install Google My Business organization.
  3. Yous'll now take a Google My Business tab on your Hootsuite dashboard.
  4. Authorize Hootsuite to access your GMB business relationship for each stream (posts, questions, and reviews).
  5. In the Posts stream, click to add a New Post.
  6. Fill in the fields (text, image, CTA push and link).
  7. Click Post At present.

For a quick look at how to use Hootsuite to postal service to Google My Business, we have a user-friendly video tutorial:

Google My Business concern post image sizes

When it comes to posting visuals to your Google My Business posts, yous'll want to continue these guidelines in listen:

  • Epitome size:
    • Minimum: 400 wide 10 300 pixels tall, 10kb
    • Maximum: 10,000 x ten,000 pixels, 25 MB
  • Video size: file sizes (AVI, MP4, MOV, etc.) tin can exist a maximum of 100MB

five great Google My Business mail service examples

ane. Event promotion posts

While in-person events aren't back in mode yet, this is a perfect example of how a local bookstore keeps everyone updated on the goings-on in their two locations.

Google my business

2. Update posts

Nouveau Palais is not usually a accept-out eating house, and so implementing an online ordering system and advertising their opening times to their customers was a wise movement during lockdown. And even during amend times, posting some enticing pictures of your offerings and keeping your hours freshly updated is a great look.

Google my business

3. Promotional posts

If you've got a coupon or a promotion you want your customers to hear about, post it here, too.

Google my business

iv. Human being posts

Google isn't Instagram. You lot are not necessarily here to win hearts and minds. Posts are fairly functional. But I have to say, this post from a neighbourhood institution in Montreal was quite touching, perhaps in a way that a post on a platform where everything is split-tested to be Every bit Touching As Possible tin't match.

Google My Business posts by Lester's Deli

five. Or, if all else fails, just post some great visuals

The great thing about photos (and videos, equally boutique Etat de Style posted, below) is that Google will multipurpose them: into your photos, into your Google image search results, etc. And then catch a sunny day and ransom your photographer friend to come over.

Google my business

Best time to post on Google My Business

While Google doesn't offer statistical guidance on the best time to post to Google My Business, we have some tips to assist you discover your own all-time practices, based on your unique audience.

Postal service when your audience will see it

Take some time to call back nearly your audience's habits, fourth dimension zones, commuting schedules, et cetera. This goes for online as well as existent-world habits. For instance, if you're running a pizza store with regular weekend rushes, post most your deals before people start to search for y'all, say Thursday or Wed.

Test the same posts at dissimilar times and review the analytics

With GMB, your evergreen content—say, mentioning how yous have access to that rare brand of imported oat milk—can be reposted every week, seeing as posts disappear on their ain afterward 7 days. Figuring out when to post means you can experiment, week past week, to encounter what time works best.

Employ Hootsuite to communicate with your customers via Google My Business and all your other social channels. Create, schedule, and publish posts to every network, get demographic data, performance reports, and more. Try it complimentary today.

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