Yesterday I visited the shopping center called Skopje City Mall where I made a total of 120 storefront photos. Then I edited them all to make them look their best as explained here. And this morning I uploaded all the photos to Google Maps using the tricks explained here.
Out of the 120 shops, 27 were not to be found on Google Maps. So I then tried to add them as new places. I added the name in English, selected the appropriate categories, and made sure the Located in-field was filled in. And I added my new photo.
To my surprise, all these new places were approved immediately.
How come there be 27 shops to add? Maybe the Local Guides of North Macedonia are not very active
Maybe the business owners are not aware of or don’t want to use Google Maps.
Never before have I found and added this many new places.
At home it is a must to add a valid phone number and the website to get new places approved - this is obviously not necessary in North Macedonia.
All the shops are dropped randomly at the Shopping center. It would be better if the mall owners would create an indoor map to make it a lot easier for visitors to navigate the Skopje City Mall when Indoor maps become available in North Macedonia.
A high proportion of my 120 images got featured or even became cover photos. No wonder when not a lot of photos were uploaded prior to my visit.
Maybe I should clarify that it took a bit more than 2 hours to upload the 120 images this morning including creating the 27 new places. So the time it took to visit the center and the time needed to edit them is not included in the 2 hours mentioned in the heading of this post.
It happened to me only once, in a new mall that just opened two days before. In my case it was like to find a gold mine, because it was just opened, but I agree that it is surprising to have 17 missing businesses that opened years ago.
If you know some Local Guide from the city, you should ping them
In any case I still remember the long sequence of “applied” emails popping on my mobile almost instantly after the submission. It is exciting
Just kidding you. Very well done, Morten. Congratulations
You’re really amazing @MortenCopenhagen . I think my highest number is 7 within a few hours or so. But then again, that was in a small town with no real shopping street or mall.
@JustJake In the moment, I was wondering why so many shops were not yet on the map. Could it be a language problem? And I did not check the approval until after I submitted them all.
I guess if Google Maps is not used that much in North Macedonia that could explain the huge number of missing places. In turn that could also mean that my photos will not get very many views. Let us wait a month or two before evaluating this. For now, I believe they are not performing as well as my photos from Denmark.
Ich folgte @JanVanHaver und in seinem Podcast erklärte er ebenfalls wie viel Vergnügen ein Einkaufszentrum bereiten kann wenn man als Local Guide neue Orte hinzufügen möchte…
Woraufhin mich ein freundlicher Mann des Wachpersonals aufforderte ihn zu begleiten und der Geschäftsführung zu erklären was ein Local Guide ist.
Eine fĂĽr mich SEHR aufregende Situation. Leider nicht sehr erfolgreich. Von dieser Arbeit wolle man nichts wissen und bat mich nicht zu fotografieren.
Tja, das war dann leider auch mein einziger Versuch
Thanks for all your wonderful comments on my posts. Very much appreciated.
At Skopje City Mall I actually decided to ask one of the guards if I needed to ask for permission to take photos of the storefronts. He was clearly surprised by the question. Then he told me: Of cause, you don’t need permission! On the other hand, I was approached in a Danish provincial mall called SlotsArkaderne about a month ago by a guard who requested me to go ask their marketing department for permission! I just told him I was there to help the store and implied that he and the shopping center were doing a disservice to the stores.
Maybe we need to test more and share the arguments that work best to convince Mall management to understand the consequences of their short-sighted opinions.
I hope you were not discouraged for being a great local guide.
Nicht entmutigt, aber in Punkto meiner Begeisterung für Einkaufszentren zunächst erstmal geheilt…
Ich werde es vielleicht ein anderes Mal erneut versuchen… Aber ganz sicher nicht in der nahen Zukunft…
Ich fĂĽhlte mich recht seltsam als mir das geschah
Ansonsten hatte ich bisher immer positive Erfahrungen gemacht und manche Ladenbesitzer sind regelrecht erfreut wenn ich erkläre was ich tue und wie es ihnen helfen kann.
Und auf Spielplätzen erkläre ich es den anwesenden Müttern auch immer UND, dass ich kur Fotos von den Spielgeräte, NICHT aber von ihren Kindern mache. Dies zeige ich ihnen auch gern anschließend.
Allerdings ist es einfacher an Schlecht-Wetter-Tagen zu gehen… Da sind die Spielplätze meist leer… Die Fotos selbst dann allerdings nicht so schön leuchtend wie bei Sonnenschein… Was ich Dank deiner Hilfe ab sofort zu verbessern weiß!
I do want to say the Skopje City Mall is a new addition that opened some time in 2022 (can’t remember exactly). However, what you found is not uncommon around Skopje (or even all of Macedonia). Even with older malls, some locations have never been created! After being gone for almost 10 years, I have seen so many issues, not just missing places, but wrong info, or places that are no longer there, still showing as open on Google Maps.
And to answer your questions:
Not many Local Guides, and most are not dedicated to the true purpose (selfies and such…)
Both not aware, and don’t care - I was told this by an employee, after telling them their location is not on Google Maps - “The owner has Instagram for the business and that’s what is important” (eye roll lol)
If you started walking down any street and checked Google Maps, you would’ve found a lot more.
I have not added many new places outside of Skopje, so I was not aware that there are requirements for doing so in other countries/cities, because I always try to input all the available info… But aside from a Pharmacy not being approved (which I understood later on that I cannot add those kind of places, which is a shame because they are missing and the owners will not add them), I have always been approved. This is a double-edged sword because someone may add a place and put incorrect info and the place will be approved, which then makes it worse in my opinion.
I agree with your idea of the indoor map, however, Macedonia is always one of the last countries to get updates released. And even if it was, if it’s up to the owners, it still may not get done unfortunately.
This has been my experience as well. However, despite being a cover photo, it does not get too many views (one or two photos being exempt from this, but still nothing like photos in America). Maybe now that it’s been almost 2 months you can give us an update on the photo views. Skopje City Mall has good traffic now, so it may not be too bad…
You could spend days adding places, photos, removing closed businesses… Maybe we should do a Meetup and spend a week just improving the map of Skopje
If you successfully could find one or two fellow local guides in Skopje you could have a lot more fun improving the Google Maps data compared to going solo. A meet up would be a great start.
The notion that photos taken in a huge countries get the most views is not necessarily always correct.
A quick look at my pics from Skopje tells me they are doing pretty good. Here are 2 screenshots.
@MortenCopenhagen Those are some great numbers. Like I said, it is a new mall and it gets a good amount of traffic, so I’m not surprised.
I don’t think it’s the size of the country, as much as it is how many people utilize Google Maps in that country (including tourists of course, of which we don’t have too many…).
Congratulations!
