Good morning fellow guides just looking for a bit of feedback really.
I’ve been a guide since day one and over the years I’ve advanced to level 6 very nearly level 7. My awards have got so far and appear to have stalled in their progression. 2 years ago I was paralysed with a spinal cord injury spent 5 months in hospital and since being discharged I’m no longer fully paralysed but still bed bound.
So obviously my ability to add new reviews are limited now, so I’ve decided to stay going back through my past reviews and seeing if I can update them by adding more details and photos. Whilst starting this I’ve noticed that I don’t seem to get many thumbs up for my reviews even though I am pretty thorough and the majority of them. When comparing to other reviews for the same place I see some guides receiving 10 + thumbs up for their contribution that consists of few words and no pictures
What am I doing wrong my photos have been viewed over a million times my reviews have been read by 120000 people yet I only have 33 thumbs up for over a hundred reviews over the years. I would like to progress to the next level of the achievement grade and open up the last 2 or 3 achievements. Now I have lots of time on my hands and can use the laptop instead of just my Samsung phone I shall see what further improvements I can do. I will also continue to review new places as and when I do get out on the odd occasion.
I can and do emphasise a lot on disabled facilities now as it is a major factor for me and come the warmer weather next year I want to start a public list of businesses with in my village to start and their commitment to equal opportunities for disabled customers.
But until then I’m going to read up as much as I can on the finer details on how to become a much thorough guide using all the available options when contributing to the local guide scheme.
So would you mind taking 5 minutes and have a quick look at my reviews and perhaps enlighten me as to why my detailed review has no thumbs up when compared to a much leaner review has 7,8,9, 10 plus please.
Saludos @Alex101 and… Welcome to Connect! (I will write in spanish but you can get advantage of the translation tool in the upper right corneer of every page of Connect )
Tu publicación me pareció muy interesante y es evidente tu preocupación en descubrir nuevas maneras de contribuir en el tema de accesibilidad en tu comunidad. En ese sentido me parece muy importante que conozcas la iniciativa One Accessibility que @EmekaUlor ha desarrollado en la comunidad de Local Guides de todo el mundo, y quizá después te puedas animar a ser parte del One Accessibilty Team que tiene varias actividades para difundir la importancia del tema de Accesibilidad en Google Maps.
De verdad creo que puedes hacer muchas contribuciones en ese sentido con ese equipo. Te dejo un link más que seguro te brindará muchas ideas nuevas sobre lo importante que pueden ser tus aportaciones a la comunidad en este tema:
Respecto los “thumbs up” en tus reseñas, quizá no puedo ayudarte mucho pero yo estoy seguro que aunque a veces no conseguimos tantos signos de aprobación, muchas de nuestras reseñas les son útiles a quienes las leen a pesar de que no le den click a ese ícono en particular. Incluso yo a veces olvido que existe esa opción, así que no me preocupo si no recibo “thumbs up” en las mías, pero tengo claro que nuestras contribuciones al mapa impactan mucho mas allá de recibir thumbs up.
Estaré atento a tus nuevas publicaciones, me interesa leer sobre los temas que preocupan. Saludos desde Ciudad de México!
Hi thank you so much for your reply I shall answer some of your questions. I always read reviews left by others on places that I am reviewing and if I find a review detailed and informative I thumbs up. Agreed probably not as much as I should now you’ve pointed it out.
And also now you have shown me that the numbers worked out to a 1/3 of reviews that’s not too bad either.
I’m happy to include family photos as it represents our visit as a family and feel it gives a genuine account of our visit. My children have always been asked permission from myself before posting my eldest always wants to make sure she looks her best lol.
Moving forward my reviews are going to be more focused on accessibility so my photos will be centred around myself not my children.
Not sure how I would gain more followers i guess this would be by posting published lists? This is something I’m not familiar with but like I said I’m taking this time to research the ins and outs of the whole local guide remit.
Hi thank you that’s very kind of you to say. I feel very redundant in this world at the moment due to my incapacity so I’ve decided I need to look for the positives. I can still think and write so applying that to something I have done but not in so much detail before seems a really good way forward.
Hi thank you so much for your encouraging response. I didn’t know anything about the accessibility team that’s fabulous just the kind of thing that I was looking for I appreciate the links and shall follow up on your suggestion.
Yes I am really looking forward to starting my new approach to Google guides by using my disability as an advantage of being able to review and report good solid information for the disabled community.
It would be beneficial if you would use the tagging tool when replying to someone here on Connect. Type @ followed by the username. Type slowly. Then we get an e-mail notification and you are more likely to get a prompt reply.
Also, we can only guess who you are replying to without tagging people.
Re. Photos.
Please understand that the guidelines require us to not share recognizable faces for more reasons. Privacy is huge. But also the fact that Google Maps is about the places. Faces have their own platform. And people in your shots take away a lot of the viewers attention from the places. And selfies are specifically discouraged. Please read the guidelines. We should share photos that are helpful to Maps users and not the photos we like.
Getting more followers could be by asking your friends and family to follow you. I doubt lists will get you many followers. Lists can be followed, but this is not the same as following you.
You can also gain followers by interacting with other accessibility heros here on Connect.
Sorry I didn’t realise about the tag i assumed it would appear under the person i was replying to. I shall use the tag in future thank you for letting me know.
Photos… I see your point and after reading further into guidelines I see I was not acting within the format suggested. Do you recommend i go back through every review and remove them all or would it be acceptable that from this point on all Photos will be ‘personless’ and just relevant to the place I’m reviewing. I am happy to take guidance from yourself as you are far more educated with guides than I am.
I am looking forward to meeting more guides through local connect now I’m more focused on becoming a better guide.
Thank you for taking the time to respond to my posts it’s really appreciated.
I don’t want you to get demotivated and less enthusiastic about being a Local Guide, but the right thing to do is to remove photos that don’t follow the guidelines.
You are certainly not the only one making such mistakes, and we all learn the most by doing and through interactions with fellow Local Guides. But you are very special in learning quickly. The decision to remove non-conforming contributions is difficult and do take longer for most LGs to reach.
I encurrage you to join some of the virtual (or physical) meet-ups to meet and interact with more Local Guides. That could also get you more followers.
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