Prolog
This article is primarily aimed at answering typical questions that local guides in India have in mind but are afraid to ask.
Introduction
It is well-known that Google Maps is a gamified product or service.
Gamification is exciting because it makes the hard stuff fun by offering incentives like gaining points, winning badges, and so on.
This is typically an online marketing technique to encourage the engagement of existing and potential users with a product or service. The primary goal of marketing is the proliferation or expansion of the product in a market.
What Local Guides Do Currently
We as local guides have embraced and have willingly agreed to be part of this game.
We additionally participate on the LG Connect platform, write articles and conduct meetups earning Likes and Badges with the ultimate aim of participating in a world convention which is like a Life Event for many because of the prestige attached to travel to overseas places, especially for people from third-world countries.
Questions
Do you think you are really helping marketing Google Maps by adding more places, adding more photos, checking more photos, or by writing articles on LG Connect and participating in meetups?
Think again.
There are severe limitations to how much a single person can achieve during the brief span of his or her association with Google Maps.
Teach Them to Fish
Offer a person a fish to remove his hunger for a day and teach a person how to fish to remove his hunger for a lifetime.
In a similar way, approach the young and old people around you, and
- Show them how to use Google Maps to search for a place easily.
- Show them how to add a place to Google Maps.
- Show them how to edit a place they know.
- Explain to them how to write a review of a place they have visited recently.
- Demonstrate to them how to add photos of the place they visited even if it was a long time ago.
The democratization of a platform will help it grow knowing that the benefits of it will definitely come back to you as explained in the next section. Currently, you belong to a privileged class of local guides who have confined this know-how to yourself.
Don’t confine yourself to being local guides. Be ambassadors of Google Maps.
Where to Find People?
- WhatsApp groups at your workplace.
- Various family WhatsApp groups.
- WhatsApp groups of high school friends.
- WhatsApp groups of your residential area.
- Your hobby WhatsApp groups.
- Travel related online groups.
- Strangers who ask you for directions when you walk or travel around.
- Kitty-parties at home.
- Weekend parties with friends.
In short, any avenue where there is a gathering of people who you think will lend you an ear.
Remember that 50 people can achieve in a day what you alone can do in a month using Google Maps. So act like an ambassador and behave as if the success of Google Maps is at stake if you don’t open up yourself to others and let them know about this product or service.
Obstacles to Proliferation of Google Maps
- A major obstacle is your mind, especially if you are an introvert or shy person. The anxiety about what people will think of you if the product may not interest them discourages you. The fear of rejection holds you back from discussing Google Maps with acquaintances and strangers alike.
- Remember Google Maps is a product or service and the area that you reside in is not a country or region but merely a market. Unless a product proliferates or spreads, that market is of little or no importance to its parent company.
Let me explain the second point briefly. I worked in a German company in Bengaluru that is the largest supplier of bottling plant machinery globally. Our largest customers are soft-drink or pop-drink manufacturers like CocaCola and Bisleri.
The largest “market”, remember not a region, is Asia comprising Japan, Thailand, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Korea, and Bangladesh. China is a separate “market”. This is because both the net and average consumption of bottled drinks in China is 2.75 times that of the “combined consumption” of the aforementioned countries .
As a result, the China office and the employees get preferential treatment by our head company in Germany in terms of perks, benefits, and everything that employees are entitled to out here in India and we would always complain and crib about that.
If a product is not popular enough in your ‘market’ irrespective of its huge population, there are essentially a large number of non-users residing in that market and you will likely not be looked upon as a worthy user irrespective of your contributions and enthusiasm.
So people out here in India who often wonder and ask during meetups about why very few local guides from India make it to the world event every year, my friends, buddies, chum, pals, go and reach out to people and start the process of democratizing, meaning “making something accessible to everyone” in your area of influence. That something is Google Maps.
It could be a solitary exercise or as part of a meetup. Before 15th August this year, free your mind of any obstacles and talk unreservedly to as many people as possible about anything that you are passionate about. This could be Google Maps, to begin with.
I have shown you the road map. It’s a long road ahead. The time to take the first step is now.
