Google offered a virtual workshop for the Google post tool. The event included best practices, a rundown of new features, and Q&A. Here’s a breakdown of what was shared:

New features launched:

• Redesigned Google Post management page:

◦ Entry point to posting on Business Profile Manager was renamed from “Updates” to “Posts”.

◦ See a list of current and previous posts and manage and delete them.

• Scheduled posts can be done directly in the post creator. You can now specify a date and time to publish posts.
• Copy posts to other listings you manage!

◦ This feature is limited to businesses that have 100 or fewer listings in their account. They’ve considered expanding that number and adding additional options for filtering but have no current plans to do so.

◦ You cannot change the URLs for copied posts directly in GBP at this time.

• Set Offer and Event posts to recur on a specific cadence (e.g. daily, weekly on Monday). You can also specify a custom end date. These run for up to one year.
• For food and drink businesses, posts published as events that are tonight, tomorrow, or this week are now placed higher on the profile and show a 9% lift in engagement.

◦ This will be extended to leisure-based businesses soon.

Best practices shared:

• When you post once a week, Google knows you’re active and customers know you’re open. Publish once per week between Monday and Friday. But don’t post just for the sake of posting.
• Frontload your value in the first 80-100 characters.
• Use high-quality visuals and avoid stock imagery. Use pictures of your team, your storefront, your products. 720x720 pixels is recommended.
• Keep videos under 30 seconds. “People want a vibe check, not a documentary.”
• “Book” or “Order Online” CTAs are most likely to drive conversions.
• Google is NOT social media. Social media is for discovery, but Google Posts are for intent. Don’t be entertaining; give the customer what they’re looking for and a very specific reason to act upon it.
• Skip the hashtag; they do nothing for you on Google and take up space.

Other helpful tidbits:

• Posts published on social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram may take longer to be crawled, while Google Posts are crawled fairly immediately. Also, social media content is not visible in Google Maps.
• Updates are the most common type of Google Posts used, but the metadata for offers or events is super valuable and allows Google to build high-quality experiences.
• Posting regularly doesn’t necessarily mean the ranking of your business is going to improve; however, if a searcher is looking for events happening tonight (e.g. trivia night, dish on special), posts give you a new opportunity to surface.