Viral Marketing through Google User Maps

We've already shown you how to post your business on Google Business Maps so that people can find you.

Now with the help of Google's "User Maps" you could create your own map overlays in Google Maps and creatively promote your business, your clients and your suppliers too.

This Blog will help you understand how you could creatively use Google User Maps and also introduces Viral Marketing to you through example.

Note: for this and other blogs, clicking on an image will enlarge it.

Typically, every business has four key groups - Suppliers, Customers, Associates (By which I mean Professional Groups, Trade Bodies etc.) and lastly your Competitors. I've not shown Competitors on the diagram below as for the purpose of this blog post, I have excluded them.


























My example demonstrates how I have promoted a number of websites I own through landmarks and places of interest in and around Alfreton, Derbyshire.

Before I go on, let me first explain about Viral Marketing. It's a term used often nowadays but not always understood.

Viral Marketing is a fancy name about the factoring of numbers in electronic marketing - thats all!

For example, you create a video on You-Tube and someone bookmarks it in Facebook or adds it as a favourite in their You-Tube account profile for others to see. The concept of Viral Marketing is simple - You link to or promote an item once and draw other people in to click on and to link to that item. One action from you, can result in hundreds of other actions - a simple modern equivalent is an email chain letter.

Viral marketing can be best illustrated by a simple diagram...

X

X X X X

X X X X X X X

Anyway, you get the idea!

Back to the example - The websites I wish to promote are all about things and people in the Alfreton Area. The two sites I am promoting are Alfreton Wiki and Alfreton History

Alfreton Wiki is a new site which is being developed. As a Wiki site, I need to get lots of people (who are interested in the subject) to visit the site and contribute information to it. The site will grow as more content is added and I simply don't have enough time to do the work myself.

Alfreton History Site is a similar new project, which requires user contributions too.

Heres what I did.

First of all, I went to Wikipedia and made some entries regarding external sites (i.e. Hyperlinks back to my sites) to a number of articles about Alfreton History - knowing that people looking for historical information, genealogy and the like would find Wikipedia as a reliable source of information and reference. I did this to primarily improve the ranking of my site as it is quite new.

I then went around Alfreton Town and photographed lots of landmarks, buildings, businesses etc. Built my Wiki site, created new pages for lots of different entities and uploaded the photographs.

My next step was to create my Google "User Map". Let me point out that a Google "User Map" is different from a business map entry. It's basically a map overlay, which you and others can contribute content to (incidentally - Your map can be exported and shown on Google Earth!).

Under the username of Alfreton Fellowship - I created around 130 entries then named my User Map Alfreton Derbyhire. You can of course, create as many maps as you like.

One of the great things about making maps is experimenting with the icons you get to use as map placement markers - you can even create your own icons if you like!

Anyway, I digress, having created each placement, I then used the rich text option to create hyperlinks back to my Alfreton Wiki Website. I still have lots of editing to do, so here's an example that's near to completion.

Go to Google Maps, then type in "Alfreton War Memorial" in the search bar, the first result should be as shown below in my illustration (Item "A").





















I like the fact that this item shows first in this instance and also that my Map Marker is shown in blue and not in red like the other business map entries! It stands out quite well and I am sure many people would click on it in favour of the other listing entries.

When you are making your map marker placements, you can edit them in plain text, rich text (thats the option I chose) or HTML. If you want to get funky, you can add images and You-Tube videos into the marker placements.

I added some text to my Alfreton War Memorial marker (which is generic for all the markers I made), then editing it using the "Rich Text" format option allowed me to easily add a very specific hyperlink back to the Alfreton War Memorial entry in Alfreton Wiki. See below...
























The link then takes people direct to the Alfreton Wiki Website - job done. My job now is to go to all the other items on the map, create the back link to the Wiki site and the history site too. Whats great about user Maps is that you can generate requests to ask other people to contribute to your map. That puts you in charge and delegates your workload too!

Applying this to your business.

Lets go back to our model of the business - Competitors, Clients, Suppliers and Associates.

You may not want to create a map of your competitors, however mapping your clients and your suppliers and your associates may be beneficial to you - its up to you.

Imagine that you are a member of Derbyshire Notts Chamber of Commerce or E-Business Club
and you wanted to promote your association with them on your map - great!

Thousands of other people will be looking for them too and if they find them via your user map then great - but thats not enough. Lets suppose that each of your marker placements went back to a specific page on your website about them - that would be more than great - it would be terrific!

This principle could be applied to your website for all your suppliers, clients and associates and the more popular they are, the more likely you can feed traffic from Google User Maps back to your business! Fantastic!

























I hope the above example has been a good illustration of viral marketing, but more importantly inspired you all to make creative use of Google User Maps.

Enjoy the journey, and remember, if you need help with anything in this or other blogs, please come into the hive@mansfield for support and advice.

Good Luck. If you have enjoyed reading this blog or if it's been useful to you - please leave a comment below.

Making Google Maps work for your business

Google Maps is a great free tool for promoting your business - So don't run your business without one!

Here's a quick demo of how to use Google Maps and how to promote your business using this free tool.

Google Maps is fast becoming more popular for people to home in on a locality and search for information. A Google Maps listing contains keywords that are utilised by the Google Maps search engine.

Keyword Demo

1. Bring up www.googlemaps.co.uk in your browser. It should by default show a view of the whole of the UK.
   
2. In the search box at the top of the screen type in "Mansfield Hive". It should find the Hive@Mansfield's listing on Google Maps and show you our entry.
   
3. Now hit the back button in your browser and type in "Headstart Programme" - again, our entry should appear amongst a list of others across the whole of the UK.
4. The Google Maps engine will determine likely results based on the location you are viewing and the keywords you use. To demonstrate this, use the zoom controls on the map to show the area around Mansfield and then run a second search for "headstart programme". You'll notice, that the results show a number of listings with the keyword "programme" highlighted, but no mention of "Headstart" - and hopefully, ours would be top of the list because it matches both keywords we used in the search.

This keyword demo is to show how important it is to first think of, and then identify the most likely keywords you should use in a Google Maps entry, pertinent to how you think your potential clients and existing customers would search to find your business. I say this to differentiate between those who already know your business name or brand names and those who don't.

Top Tip - In addition to using keywords in your listing you can also add some images. Design your images to be appealing and also add a text layer, to enforce your keyword messages. Don't forget to use one for your business logo.

How to create a Google Maps Listing

You will need a Google Account to create a Google Maps Listing.


















On the home page of Google Maps, click on the link (Highlighted above) "Put your business on Google Maps". This link will prompt you to sign in (Highlighted below) or (a little further down the screen) prompt you to create a Google Account.



















When you sign in, opt to create a new listing and it will take you straight into a wizard. Complete the entries as fit and upload your photo's too.

Top Tip - Use the fix marker tool to position the marker on the exact location of your business.


















Top Tip - Don't add your email address in the email field! Otherwise your email address will be picked up by bots on the Internet looking to capture email addresses and you'll end up with lots of nasty spam!

At the end of the process, opt for the confirmation by telephone option to verify your listing - its quick and simple to do. Google will call the telephone number you specified in your listing and ask you to confirm using a pin number.

When you listing becomes live, check that the details show as you wish them to, edit and make any necessary changes.

The most important step
Finally, the most important step of all - ask your customers to add reviews about your products and services. Good quality reviews will make your business maps listing really work for your business.

If you have enjoyed reading this blog or if it's been useful to you - please leave a comment below.