Google Posts
Posts on your Google Business Profile are a great way to keep customers up to date on What's New, Events, and Offers that your location is having. LocalClarity makes it easy to publish Posts both for individual locations and in bulk. This article will walk through the different capabilities of what you can and can't do when it comes to Google Posts.
Single Location Post
Let's say one of your locations has something coming up that your customers/future customers need to know about. That's where Posts are most effective, because of their two pronged approach. While social media is great to let followers in on updates, Posts also reach those searching for your brand or your services. So, think of Posts as a fuller funnel approach to updates. To make a single post in LocalClarity, head to the Locations tab and select the Location in which you would like to make a Post for. When the location view comes up, select Create Posts.
From there the 'Create Google Post' page will appear. This gives you three posting options (COVID Update has been shuttered by Google) What's New, Event, and Offer. Let's break these options down, as they are prevalent for both single and bulk posts.
Updates (What's New)
Provide updates on your business on any exciting new changes, whether a new dish at a restaurant, a new GM at a car dealership, or perhaps a major change to store hours.
Photos are a great way to make your Post more attention grabbing. The recommended ratio is 4:3 and make sure the photo quality is high, as you don't want a blurry or grainy photo. Google's API does not support carousel image Posts (multiple images) through their API, so this has to be done manually through your GBP. The same goes for video, as of this writing (Feb, 2023) Google's API does not support videos being uploaded through their API. This too has to be done through GBP location by location.
Every type of post has a 1500 character limit, so include any relevant information. Make sure not to keyword stuff or use hashtags to try to rank higher. Posts are a great way to keep customers in the know, but have no known affect on local rankings. Think about what message you want to convey, and remember potential customers prefer concise messages rather than spammy sounding jargon.
'Campaign Content Name' is a way to label Posts to keep them organized. This is optional.
'Add a Button' is also optional but is a great way to measure the success of a Post. This is your Call To Action. You can have a button for: Book, Order Online, Buy, Learn More, Sign Up, or Call Now.
Once you select an option, 'Link for your button' will appear. This is the CTA link where clicking on the button will take the customer. So if it's Sign Up, include the link for your Sign Up page. For 'Call' no Link is needed, as this will pull from your location's phone number.
Schedule Post is a slider that you can activate if you want to schedule your post out for the future. Once set, choose between Once or Recurring for your post. While Recurring posts are less common, they can be useful for weekly events such as Karaoke Night (that would be under an Events Post, more on that later). After selecting Once, you can pick the Time and the Time Zone associated.
You are now ready to Publish your post!
Event
Similar to What's New except for the following:
Write Your Title- Think of this as your Post's subject line. Be short and to the point of the event, for example: Wednesday Trivia Night!
Start Time/End Time: How long your Event post will be actively shown. It makes sense to have this from the post date through the day of your event. If you make the Post recurring, make sure the description is evergreen such as: Come down for Thursday Trivia starting at 7pm every week...
Offer
Similar to previous two except for the following:
Coupon Code: If your Offer has an applicable coupon code, enter it here. Example: QUARTER25
Link to redeem offer: This link will take them to the sale page on your website. This can be built to UTM track performance, more on that below. For example, if you have certain products for 25% off, this link will take customer to the sale page, where they can use code QUARTER25 to save 25%.
Location Variables: This is a dynamic way to have unique URLs for each of your locations when making a post both single and in bulk. This is built with UTM parameters. For example, let's say you have 10 locations that are all having the same sale. To track performance by location, you can add in the <Store Code> variable to the UTM based URL so that each location is broken out in traffic reporting.
Terms and Conditions: Optional, but you can put any 'fine print' regarding the offer. For example, code only valid until 3/11 and can't be redeemed on clearance items.
Bulk Posts
If you manage hundreds of locations, doing posts one by one is not feasible. There are multiple ways to do a post in bulk in LocalClarity. One way is selecting multiple locations in the Locations tab (or Select All) and selecting the +Post option. Or if you have locations grouped, you can filter Locations page by a Group and then Select All.
While the Locations tab is useful for making Posts, the Posts tab offers bulk actions, valuable insights, and a history of your posts.
Posts Tab
The Posts tab in LocalClarity has three sections: Publish/Schedule, Manage/History, and Reporting.
Publish/Schedule
The first step to making a bulk post through this page is downloading the sample CSV. After downloading the sample CSV, fill out the fields in order to make a post in bulk. This is an advantageous method for bulk posting for a number of reasons. By using the CSV you can change the media by location. So if you wanted different pictures for different locations, you can easily differentiate that here.
If you want to make the same post for all of your locations, the Locations page is the way to go, but if you want to make a lot of posts, all with different variables, the Publish/Schedule method is the more efficient manner.
After uploading the Posts, they will be put in a Queue, and once processed you will see that they are either successfully ready to go, or there was an error. If there is an error, correct the error message and try again until no error is received.
Manage/History
In LocalClarity, users can view a history of their Posts, past, current, and scheduled. This is a great snapshot of your Posts. This is also where you can check on whether your Post upload failed due to an error in the CSV.
Reporting
The third tab on the Posts page was heavily affected by changes made by Google in February 2023. In short those changes were the following:
Google API Restrictions
Unfortunately there is currently no way to attach video on Posts through any 3rd Party platform (including LocalClarity), as the API does not accept that medium. While you can add a video individually when creating a Post through GBP, there is no way to do so in bulk. This could be something that changes in the future, but as of now, videos can only be done manually in Google.
GIFs are another medium that is not supported through Google's API. Much like video, GIFs have to be included in Posts through GBP and not through any other platform.
Emojis are supported and can be added in LocalClarity!
Summary
Google Posts are a useful tool to keep customers, both current and future, up to date on your business. LocalClarity allows for multiple ways to make posts in a time saving manner. Continue to keep the public informed, as even if it doesn't change local rankings much, it does improve your virtual storefront.
For additional questions, please reach out to support@localclarity.com
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