Google Posts for Events and Offers

A noticeboard on the listing

When somebody finds your business on Google, by name or on Maps, the listing can show short posts from you, each with a photograph and a button.

Google My Business made posts available to every business last summer. Anybody with owner or manager access can add them, from the dashboard or the phone app.

Plenty of owners tried one or two, then stopped, usually because nothing seemed to happen. A post that says very little, put up once, rarely does much.

Posts work when they carry something a person searching that week would want to know, and they work best when it has a date.

Two kinds of post

• An update is a short note with a photograph, shown for seven days.
• An event has a title, a start and an end, and stays until it ends.
• A button, such as Learn more or Sign up, can go on either.
• The text can run long, but only the opening shows before a tap.

The second is the one most businesses underuse. An event post keeps working for its whole run, while an update needs replacing every week.

Why dates matter

An update drops off the listing after a week. That suits news that is only true for a week, and it means a listing without a fresh post simply shows none.

An event stays visible until its end date and time. A class on the 16th, an open house over a weekend or a two-week sale can sit there from the day it is announced.

For a business with anything dated to tell people, that is the most useful thing about posts.

Events

Anything with a time and a place counts: a workshop, a tasting, a demonstration day, the first day of the season, a talk.

Give it a title that names the thing plainly, set the real start and end, and put the essentials in the first line: what, when, and whether booking is needed.

Point the button at the page where people book or read more, rather than at the home page.

A class that runs every Tuesday is better posted one session at a time, so the next date is always the one showing.

Offers

An offer is a thing with dates too. A sale over a long weekend, or a seasonal price that ends on a known day, fits an event post with the offer's own start and end.

An ordinary update is a poorer fit for an offer, since it stays up for seven days whether the offer has ended or not.

Either way, say exactly what the offer is, who it applies to and when it ends. Vague promises of savings read like advertising, and people scroll past advertising.

The offer on the listing has to match the one at the counter. A customer who arrives quoting a post your staff have never heard of is a poor start.

A worked example

A family berry farm in the Fraser Valley sells from a farm stand and runs a U-pick through June and July.

Every season the same questions arrived by phone: whether the strawberries were ready, which days were open, whether containers were provided.

The answers went on Facebook, where many of the people asking never looked. Anyone searching for the farm saw a listing with last year's photographs and nothing about this season.

This year the farm posted the U-pick season as an event, with its real dates and a line on hours and containers, and added a short update each week on what was ripe.

The listing now answers the questions people were phoning about, at the moment they search.

What makes a post worth the minute

A good post says something specific that is true this week: what is ready, what is on, what has changed, what is booking up.

A poor one says something that would be true any week. Thank you to our loyal customers, a reminder to visit the website, and a row of hashtags all fall into that category.

Write the first line as if it were the only line, because for most readers it is.

Photographs

The photograph is cropped to fit the box, so keep the subject near the centre, with room to spare on every side.

Real photographs of the actual thing work better than designed graphics with text on them, which shrink into something unreadable on a phone.

A logo on its own tells a searcher nothing the listing has not already told them. A phone photograph taken that morning is usually the right choice.

A weekly routine

Because updates last a week, the businesses that use posts well usually have a routine: one person, one day, ten minutes.

Events go up as soon as they are announced, not the week before. Updates rotate through what is current: a new product, a finished job, a seasonal reminder.

The listing reports how many people viewed each post and pressed its button. Over a few months, that shows which kinds are worth the time.

What posts are not for

Posts are not the place for holiday hours. The listing has a separate setting for special hours, and that is what Google uses to tell searchers whether you are open.

Nor do they replace the business description, the categories or the photographs, which stay on the listing permanently.

The counter-case

Posts are a small feature. Google has not said they affect where a listing ranks, and they do nothing for a listing with the wrong hours or a missing category.

A business with nothing dated and little that changes from week to week, such as an emergency locksmith, may reasonably post less often and spend the time on reviews and photographs.

For anything with a date, though, an event post takes a minute and sits in front of people who are already looking for you.

This week

1. List what is dated in the next three months.
2. Post each one as an event with real dates.
3. Put the essentials in the first line.
4. Use a real photograph with the subject centred.
5. Point the button at the matching page.
6. Add a short update each week.
7. Check views and clicks after a month.

Step two is where most of the value lies, because an event post works for its entire run while an update has to be replaced every seven days.

Making booking easy once somebody has found the listing is covered in when a computer calls to book.

Frequently asked questions

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