Have You Used Twitter For Google My Business Support?
-
Hey Everybody!
If you've been doing Local for some years, chances are, you remember those dark days in the past when there was zero Google local support. You could post something in their forum, but that was pretty much your only hope. It was an absolutely amazing day when they finally rolled out phone support, and I'm still very grateful that this exists, but just this week, I learned about another way to contact support.
Joy Hawkins has surfaced a Twitter account you can tweet when in need of assistance and she says its not only really fast, but that the help is US-based (which would be great for US users).
I'd never heard of this before and wondered if any of you have tried it, and what response times and overall satisfaction you experienced with it. If you've not tried it yet and are experiencing a local client conundrum, maybe give it a try and let our community here know how it went?
-
Hey There!
I really appreciate you coming back to update this thread with your experience. So, that's really good to note that someone noticed your company Twitter. Good to know! And sure, you don't want to abuse the account, but it sounds like you've now got a new resource that could be handy in a variety of situations. Neat development!
-
A follow-up, https://twitter.com/GoogleSmallBiz saw this conversation and reached out to our company twitter account (my original request came from my personal account, I think our company twitter has a bit more weight) and they were very quick at resolving the issue. I don't want to abuse the account, but I'm tempted to put all of my odd/weird request through them since, as mentioned, anything out of the normal seems to confuse the call center. And that is the only time I need to reach out to them.
One thing to note, they requested I DM them.
-
Hmm, that's too bad that you haven't rec'd a response in 24 hours. And your experience with phone support sounds typical - some staff are very good, but others don't seem to have equal training. Frustrating.
On Google dedicated reps, I have wondered if they might go that way if they fully implement Home Service Ads in Local, but, I'm not holding my breath. It would be awesome if they did!
-
Morning Miriam,
24 hours since I tweeted, no response yet. I'm still leaning towards getting the calls back. Although I dealt with the call center twice yesterday and the first person was awesome (pin not showing to a client in Dominican Republic so pretty standard request), the second person never did get what I was asking and kept repeating the same answer over and over.
I'm going to continue to monitor and will report back when if I hear more.
Any idea if GMB will take a representative model for legitimate agencies that offer local services? I would love to have one contact to call when I bring a client on board and deal with firming up their GMB visibility. I have brought it up with a few people at the call center, one guy hinted at it, but wouldn't say anything official.
-
(This is Miriam, but I'm in Mozzer Alliance right now)
Oh, super! Looking forward to hearing how it goes. Good luck!
-
Hi Miriam,
Thanks for the heads up about this account. I was unaware of this and am in the process of trying it out myself. We had the previous name of the hotel resurface as one and are trying to get it marked closed again. The only issue I can see is explaining a complicated issue a tweet (although it might help trim out the "fat" of the request)
I have had varying success requesting a call back for support, although with any complicated issue, there is a lot more back and forth then I would like.
I will report back when I heard more.
-
Good Morning, Peter!
Thanks so much for sharing your experience, and that's a great example from the Webmaster Help Forum. I agree with you that the voluntary support in Google's forum is kind of an extraordinary thing. On the one hand, it has proved an excellent training ground for Local SEOs who have become TCs and have gained extra knowledge of common problems with the local products. On the other hand, it sort of abets Google in not having to staff Local as they probably should.
It will be nice if someone give the Twitter option a try and shares with us how it went!
-
I didn't use GMB in Twitter but i have some issue with AdWords. And GAW Twitter account was very useful for me answering me exactly what i need. And even they answer me for other questions in DM.
Overall their support forum strange since in 99% of cases you receive help from non-employees and some of answers are not very useful at all. Of course there are spectacular examples where someone receive help from employees:
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/webmasters/R0MGhtF3IDs/6UghGfcXCAAJ
but they're rare. Very rare.Their phone support is IVR (interactive voice response), their mail support was scaled with AI (i can't find article but i read in past someone complaining about that with case of Nexus ordering and epic mail correspondence with them). So we shouldn't scary that Joy trying their Twitter for helping.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Why won't a business show up in the local pack when all signs point to that it should?
Hello! I've been trying to figure out why a business won't show up in the local pack even though their GMB has more reviews, seems to be doing everything right, and just doesn't show. The business is "A Senior Journey", and should be showing up for searches relating to "senior placement services tucson" or "senior placement tucson", but no dice. Been doing a competitor analysis and they are doing better or on par with all of their competitors. The same businesses in Tucson that are competitors show up both times, even Phoenix locations, but not A Senior Journey...any ideas? Thank you!
Local Listings | | WebMO-Tech-Rep0 -
Google My Business Issue
I have seen an issue with GMB that Google Support say is not an issue. I work for an agency and we manage about 50-60 GMB accounts for our clients. Most of our clients are flooring retailers and under our MCC account we also have our agencies listing. When I was searching for my client on Google using their brand name for example Walmart, I noticed my agency listing shows even though my client is over 1000 miles away. I have used multiple browsers in incognito and multiple devices and still see this so I know its not a personalized result. We also link to this client from our website which is the only thing connecting the dots between my agency and the client. https://imgur.com/UEqNAyA - screenshot (hiding phone numbers & business names for obvious reasons) showing 2 locations over 1000 miles apart. My first attempt at contacting Google I was informed of ways to get my listing higher which I quickly told them that isn't my issue. I also asked to speak to a SME (subject matter expert) and was told all of them were on lunch, asked for a supervisor and was told they were too on lunch. Has anyone else experienced this? Any idea why it would show two different companies over 1000 miles apart when searching for a companies name? Did I stumble a way for SEO's to cheat the local map pack?
Local Listings | | Jacob-Lial1 -
How to tell Google My Business what area is local to my company?
Hello Mozers I've been stumped by the changes in the interface with Google My Business. I used to be able to set up the area for which I wanted a business to cover. Now I can't find anyway to tell Google. The company I work for is in St Albans and our main workload is London. It would be helpful if I could actually control what Google Local sees as Local for my company, i.e. to encompass central London which is only 19 miles away. Can someone give me an idiots guide has to how to tell Google the area I'd like our local listing to cover? Thanks
Local Listings | | Catherine_Selectaglaze0 -
How do you select a Google category for the SERPs?
Recently I was looking up law schools in Texas and came across a SERP listing I had never seen before. Google provided the category "law school" and narrowed it down by geographic location. I checked the code on both websites for schema and was unable to locate it. Furthermore, one GMB listing was claimed and another was not. I'm wondering why both Texas A&M School of Law and Houston College of Law showed up but University of Texas Law School did not. I have attached a screenshot of the SERP to see if anyone has seen this before or can provide any insight. Search term was "list of law schools in texas" but the same snippet showed up for "best law schools in texas." Thanks 8XHvZt4.png
Local Listings | | DigitalMarketingSEO0 -
Top Local Organic Rankings, But Nowhere to be found on Google Snack Pack
I've been working with a local gym for a while now. We successfully got the gym to beat out all its competitor and now it consistently ranks in the 3rd or 4th result for all major local industry keywords. For example "gym in [city]". The only thing above us is Yelp and other directory sites. The problem I am running into is we do well organically, but when it comes to Google Snack Pack we aren't in the top three or even 10. You have to go deep into the next pages of the map to find our business. I did find that we use to be categorized as health club in Google My Business, but I changed that three months ago. Some more additional info, the site when I got the account moved to a different url. So many directories and sites that linked to us in the past link to the old url. The old url is 301 redirected to our current url. I haven't found much info about this topic and am looking for any experience or insight?
Local Listings | | JasonKhoo0 -
Google Plus Business Page is not showing up
Hello, I had 2 google+ business pages. But the website under those pages were different. For example, www.abc.com on 1st one and then www.xyz.com on 2nd one. Both of them had the different business name and website but same address and phone number. Also, www.abc.com domain was set as redirecting to www.xyz.com. My 1st business page was ranking good but I wanted to use 2nd one only so I called up google and asked them to remove the 1st one and then they closed it. Now, the problem is that I lost the 1st one and 2nd one is not ranking for any of the keyword (I have checked all the pages in the SERP and it doesn't show up anywhere until last page). I have fixed all the citations everywhere recently but no luck in getting ranking. Can anyone suggest what steps can be done to rank 2nd one now? FYI, I am talking about local places ranking, the domain www.xyz.com is ranked well in organic ranking. Any help is appreciated! Brian
Local Listings | | BrianBotts.0 -
Does anyone use Moz Local + Yext? How valuable is this for local businesses?
For brands that have a budget to pay $600 / year for valuable backlink directories, would you recommend Moz Local + Yext? I would like to hear some feedback on marketers that use Yext. Thanks,
Local Listings | | ColeLusby
Cole0 -
Google+ Local and a Google+ Company Page
I have an established G+ company page but also want a G+ Local listing in order to appear on Google maps. The company does have a physical address, phone number etc. to qualify for a G+ Local listing. No current local listing exists to claim. Should I: a) Switch the currrent G+ company page to be a G+ Local page; or b) Create a new G+ Local page and keep the G+ company page; or c) Ignore G+ Local and create the listing through Google Places Thanks
Local Listings | | bjalc20110