Each day we’re seeing more and more Local Guides contributing videos on Maps. In these videos they share their experiences at the places they enjoy so that others can get a much better appreciation of and make better informed decisions about visiting these places. This post is about such videos and more specifically, it’s about showcasing the “best” videos shared by Connect Local Guides. Like photos, videos have a view count and in the absence of a better metric, in this post we use the number of views that a video has as a measure of that video’s quality and we refer to our video having the most views as being our star video.
This post includes a set of leaderboards that showcase the star videos of Local Guides from all over the world and whether you are a Level 10 or a Level 2 Local Guide, if you have contributed video on Maps, you can join in to showcase your star and it’s simple to do. Just hit this link and register or if you want to know more then see this How-to post by @AZ_2021
So what can you learn from the Star Videos Leaderboards?
By sharing our video contributions and achievements we can learn a lot about how to improve the quality of our videos so that we can achieve even better outcomes in terms of the impact that they have on our communities. We have been doing this successfully with photos over many years and so now we can do the same with videos. Let’s see if together we can learn what type of videos work “best”.
If you haven’t as yet shared your star video thenregister nowas we’d all love to see it!
Featured above are thumbnail screenshots of 3 of the star videos added on Google Maps by Top 100 Leaderboard participating Local Guides @ZUKInp (Level 8), @jayasimha78 (Level 10) and @Mikeinthefalls (Level 7). To see more details about these featured videos, click on the following links:
How to Read the Star Video leaderboards (December 2023)
Briefly, this is what you need to know about the leaderboards in this post. For more details see the leaderboard documentation:
The leaderboards in this post present details about the star videos of participating Local Guides from all over the world. If you have contributed videos on Maps then you will have a star video, it’s your video that has the most views and we call this, the star video.
As well as an overall leaderboard, you will see leaderboards for different Local Guide levels which provide you with direct comparisons of your star video’s performance with that of your peers. Finally, there’s a leaderboard ranking the top 100 star videos by average star views per day which gives an indication on how good your star video is. To be included in this leaderboard, you must have updated your star video’s views in the period since the date of the last average star views per day leaderboard as posted here on Connect last month.
The average star views per day is calculated by dividing the star views by the life of the star video expressed in days. The life of the star video is equal to the number of days between when you first uploaded your star video on Maps and the date that you last updated the star views and thus, will be different for each participating Local Guide. Therefore, for accuracy of the information it is important that you enter the correct dates. When it comes to the date that you last updated the star views, point #2 above is very important.
As well as the star views and the date uploaded onto Maps, each listing on the leaderboards shows the Maps Category, and a description (e.g. Storefront, Building or Park) of the respective Local Guide’s star video.
If the Maps Category of a star video is shown as a link and if the name of the relevant Place of Interest was provided by the respective Local Guide, then hovering over that link will show you the name of the place and selecting that link will take you to a screenshot with details of that place as stored on the Local Guides, 2023 Star Videos post, a “star video album” if you will, of star videos.
If the Maps Category of a star video is shown on a colored background then that star video has been selected as one of the best that meets the formatting requirements as specified in the star video album post. Select that star video’s category and see why it has been rated as one of the best and read more about that star video on the “star video album” post.
Selecting any of the Connect Usernames will take you to that Local Guide’s Connect Profile.
Preceding some of the leaderboards, you may see a number of screenshots of featured star videos. If so, these are a selection from those that best meet the requirements as detailed in the “star video album” post.
Clicking or selecting any of the featured star video images shown will take you to where you can view the Local Guide’s video.
Where shown, around leaderboard sequence numbers indicate that this is the first time that the Local Guide has participated on the Top 100 Local Guides leaderboards.
Where shown, ( ) around leaderboard sequence numbers indicate that this Local Guide levelled up/down onto this leaderboard.
An asterisk (*) shown after a Connect Username indicates that that Local Guide is a Connect Moderator.
Double asterisks (**) shown after a Connect Username indicates that that Local Guide is a Googler.
A ? or the words “Not set” in a cell indicates that the respective value cannot be determined or hasn’t been provided by or for the respective Local Guide.
Local Guides included on the leaderboards must check their entries for any errors. If you should find any errors or omissions, please add the details in a comment on this post. Regarding omissions, please note point 14 above.
@AdamGT this is the most interesting list these days as ranks are going to be quickly changing with videos views amassing faster either as more are featured or as they dominate the map explore feature.
So unlike photos where I suspect most of the top viewed photos have been lucky to be featured for a long while on top locations, we will see the video list filled with recent month added videos.
I do not know if this is a wild exception, but quick videos snippets which I took just last month from this busy location and are unfeatured, will overtake shortly my current star video which is featured on a popular market and uploaded two years ago.
Crazy.
Oh I so agree @abermans with a number of things you’ve said and precisely for the reasons that you have mentioned and this is the thrust behind my not so subliminal message in the cover GIF of this month’s star videos post . The rankings will certainly be much more dynamic. Well done Sam but as you have said, 400k video views in a month… nuts!!!
I’m with @abermans on this, but I’m not sure how I feel about posting to Explore or posting Updates in general. For example, every place is decked out for the holidays, so it’s great to post an update to show some beautiful light displays. But I wouldn’t have included this in a review since it wouldn’t be valid for the general location, nor would it be the scene for the other 11 months of the year. The updates live on, even if short-lived on the Explore page. We may get a massive thrust of views, but will we be stuck with all these Red Stars? @AdamGT
Staggering numbers @abermans You first showed us the quick 2-5 sec video method and I have been using it, mostly for storefronts, Having some good success. But I also see once they are not featured on Explore views slow down. Still playing with this.
Funny you should mention red stars @JustJake because, based on my own personal experience and from looking at the data of many Local Guides, for some time now, with the aid of some of the T100 System charts, I have had the thought in the back of my mind of writing a post about red stars.
Very interesting @abermans . I love making those comparisons. But whereas all my videos are new, I have for example a 4 year old photo at 462,000 views, and a 6 month old photo at 409,000 views and growing rapidly. My videos keep swapping places everytime I run my numbers, but none have an age advantage yet.
Congratulations to all the people posting videos and making the effort to post in the Top100 video boards.
@tony_b , you keep downplaying your videos, but at:
#14 top100
#4 level 8
#19 av views
your work stands up well everywhere.
And People may scoff at the lack of competition at levels 6 & 7 (maybe everyone else is afraid to take on @IzzyOz and @Mikeinthefalls ) their numbers stand up as well
Thank you @Rednewt74 . And you’re doing quite well yourself.
Yes I may have downplayed my early performance at taking videos, but my Star Video is one that was a conscious effort. A few other new ones are good too, and jumping right over previous ones in terms of total views to get near the top of my list.
Statistics can be quite fascinating though. You do realize that every participant can rank “high” on the video Top100 leaderboards at the moment, as none of the boards even have as much as 50 (which is the halfway point to 100).
