"What local guide program mean to me"

Google Maps contribution stories
1

“What local guide program mean to me”

This is excellent program I came across on social media.

  • Exposure to Local Guide program

I am 60 years old retired person with limited knowledge & exposure to various social media programs. Traveling & visiting new places is my passion. I used to travel a lot and use Google maps. While using this platform I got exposed to various features of Google maps & also realized it’s power and usefulness to users.

  • Encouragement as a Local Guide ( Ref my data card on maps )

Once I got introduced to local guides program by my Nephew, I casually started posting my reviews on Local guide. I started getting many likes and visits to my review, further people started responding on my reviews, I started receiving replies from business owners. People started visiting new places I introduced on Local guide. This gave me sense of satisfaction as I was making some difference in society and guiding enthusiastic people to various places. Thus I started posting reviews regularly.

I like to travel, gather information about places and take photographs. Local guide gave me a Platform to post all these information, photos and videos where they can be used & acknowledged by people. This gave a sense of fulfillment and Joy of sharing to me.

Once I started writing reviews and posting photos/videos, Google started awarding me badges. They also kept me going by providing analysis of number of views and likes on photographs and mentioning milestones achieved by me. Mail from Google made me realize impact I am having on society and motivated me to go that extra mile to provide information to users.

My drive to travel takes me remote and less known places. Local guide has given me a platform to add these places on Google Maps thus letting the world know about beauty which is present just next to them. In due course of time I understood power of this program & started helping small business owners by adding their business on map, I also started communicating with them about such additions which made them overwhelmed and happy. In this way I am giving back to the community in which I am staying.

I observed after posting few reviews that photos & video makes lot of impact to understand the place better, so I started uploading all relevant photos & videos with review. Constantly taking photos and videos from various angles and getting users review on them have taken my photography skills to a next level. I started understanding angles to use, frames to capture, lighting effects on different objects, etc. Writing reviews has also increased my writing skills.

I am very happy as local guide (level :sunglasses: & thankful to Google to provide such nice opportunity to share my knowledge & serve society better.

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