Imagine an old telephone book—you know, the ones people used before everyone had the internet in their pockets. A Google My Business listing is something like that. It might be the first thing your audience stumbles upon when they run a search for your business online, or anything related to what you sell.
As Google defines it, your business listing is usually the first impression you give your prospects, even before they check out your products or visit your website.
So, who is this for?
Anyone can strategically use a GMB listing to get local search hits. However, it is most ideal for a small-to-medium-sized business with a local office to manage a verified GMB listing.
Let’s understand this better with a little story!
Say hello to Sofia, owner of a budding travel agency—Zylker Travels! (She says hi back!). She's enthusiastic, loves to travel, and always up for an adventure! She's passionate about helping people find the best deals and the right holiday packages, customized for each individual. And the best part— they're all reasonably priced!
Now, Sofia has to address several needs for her business, from promoting her new brand in and around her city, to building a customer-centric presence for her business. To spread the word to the right audience, she needs a platform to publish posts about her business, announce holiday packages offered by her agency, and share interesting articles she writes about travel and adventure. She also needs to maintain and manage a website to let her customers make their travel bookings. and direct them to her local office. Finally, she needs to understand the reach and performance of her business and social posts. The success and growth of her firm ultimately lies in these factors.
If only she had a super-cool business listing that can be seamlessly managed in one tool, along with her other social channels. (Hint: Zoho Social has the answer to all her problems!)
So, Sofia is stoked when she stumbles upon Google My Business and slowly learns all the cool features she was missing out on until now. She finds that not only can she easily combine her digital marketing efforts and social media engagement with a business listing, she can also now get more traffic to her website and blog posts.
Wait. What's that? Oh! It's Sofia asking you to get started right away by setting up your Googe My Business listing listing if you don't have one already! Now, Sofia can easily set up her location on Google Maps to direct people to her local office. She gets to post updates on her listing, and actively engage with her audience by answering their questions and comments. And that's just the beginning! She can also manage a (free) micro-website on Google My Business and use CTA buttons on her posts and listing to direct people to her website where they can easily book their travel. This way, the GMB listing will show up on Google search results for the brand—generating more traffic to her website and social media posts, and boosting her local search rankings.
Now, how does Zoho Social help Sofia manage her Google My Business listing?
1) She can schedule and publish posts
Consistently coming up with authentic, fresh content for Zylker Travel's GMB listing can be challenging for a solopreneur like Sofia. This is where Zoho Social's smart publishing tool comes to play. Sofia can now use Zoho Social to publish to multiple social channels in one go—including her Google My Business listing. She can also include a CTA button to her posts, right from the publishing window, to direct her audience to her company's website on Google My Business.
Sofia can schedule all her finished posts in advance, publish business updates and events immediately, and keep her audience informed of her offers and promotions. To maintain a consistent posting schedule for her business, Sofia can also set up publishing queues.
2) She can engage with ratings and reviews posted by her customers
People often think twice before they invest in a product or service, simply because they'd like to hear the experiences of others who've used it. With Google My Business, Sofia easily builds online credibility through the reviews and ratings posted by other verified customers. This gives her a chance to view and respond to those reviews right from her Zoho Social dashboard. Sofia realizes the importance of putting the customer first. Whether a customer encounters a problem, writes a review, or just shows some appreciation for Zylker Travels, she can respond immediately, from Zoho Social's Monitoring dashboard.
Sofia can now ensure her customers are happy, by following up on all her reviews and taking measures to improve her service. This way, Zylker Travels can improve its social listening and prioritize customer service satisfaction.
3) She can gain insights about audience engagement
And finally, Sofia can easily track the engagement of individual posts on her Google My Business listing, and better understand the reach and performance of her brand on Google Search. Based on these stats, she can improve her content strategy, and learn the trends and preferences of her audience.
With Zoho Social, she can see the total number of views on her Google My Business posts and the number of times her audience clicked on the CTA button.
She can also gain more insights natively through the Google My Business interface, to understand how her audience discovers her brand.
Sofia is now super happy! Her business is doing great, her customers are satisfied, and she saves a lot of time and resources by using Zoho Social to manage her brand presence and social media marketing efforts. Want to be like Sofia? Give Zoho Social a try. Here's the good news-- it comes with a 14-day free trial!
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