One thing I’ve noticed while exploring Local Guides Connect is that, despite being a community of thousands of passionate contributors, only a few hundred guides actually follow each other. This feels unusual compared to other platforms, because here everyone is already a guide — we share the same mission of helping people discover places, yet the “follow” culture is surprisingly weak.
Why This Happens
Platform design: Connect was built more as a forum than a social network. The emphasis is on posts, reviews, and discussions rather than building a follower count.
Contribution-first mindset: Many guides focus on adding reviews, photos, and edits on Google Maps itself, and treat Connect as a side space for sharing stories.
Limited visibility: Unlike Instagram or Twitter, following someone here doesn’t dramatically change your feed. So many guides don’t see the value in pressing “follow.”
Why Following Matters
Even if the platform isn’t follower-driven, following each other can:
Build recognition among active contributors.
Encourage cross-engagement — when you see familiar names, you’re more likely to comment and connect.
Strengthen the sense of community identity — we’re not just individuals posting reviews, we’re part of a global network.
How We Can Improve
Start small: Follow guides whose posts inspire you, even if it’s just a handful.
Engage actively: Comments and thoughtful replies often matter more than follows, but doing both creates stronger bonds.
Create collective threads: Challenges like “Best local breakfast spots in your city” or “Hidden gems only locals know” encourage guides to interact and follow each other.
My Perspective
As someone who travels between Kabul, Dubai and London I see Local Guides Connect as more than a review forum , it’s a chance to bridge cultures, benchmark hospitality standards, and promote sustainability in travel. But for that to work, we need stronger ties between guides themselves. Following each other is a simple step toward building the kind of vibrant, interconnected community that reflects the diversity of the places we write about.
People usually follow when they genuinely connect with someone’s content or location, not just to grow numbers. Maybe that’s why it feels different from typical social platforms and more about real connections @asadziar
You are spot-on, @asadziar, in that Google Maps is the primary platform for local guides, and they often like or follow good reviewers out there. But I think that option is no longer available.
Back to Connect, there are not many people posting daily.
So for a person like me who checks Connect daily multiple times, it is easy to read through most of the good and better posts within an hour at max.
Hence, the concept of following is neither very useful nor popular on Connect.
Most local guides out here who have been for a fairly long time know the best writers, off their memory, including the username and real names, and even personally.
Finally, I would say you got it correct again - LGs are famous for reciprocity, meaning, they would comment and appreciate posts to return favors most of the time. The good side of this they do form a strong bond, as you have rightly mentioned
Hello @asadziar thank you for sharing your thoughts. That said, I believe it’s perfectly natural for people to choose whether to follow someone or not on an online platform, regardless of the factors mentioned
Very interesting that you ask this question @asadziar. I’ve previously asked “What is Connect?” and I don’t think I have a comprehensive answer yet.
A lot depends on how a person discovers Connect. I was directed here for help with an issue on Google Maps, and I still primarily see it as a help forum for Local Guides who post on Google Maps.
Following on from what I already said, this is a place where Local Guides meet to discuss what Local Guides do. I’m actually shocked to sometimes see stories on Connect that have nothing to do with our work on Google Maps. I even see some who daily try to find something to write, just to increase their count of Connect posts.
I don’t do social media, so my presence on Connect was never about Followers and Following, although I did accept and initiate connections with a moderate list of LGs. My Connect “feed” is mainly populated via certain hashtags I’ve selected based on relevant topics. I’ll also admit that I recently unfollowed an LG whose posts were filling my feed with stories I considered to be irrelevant to what we do here on Google Maps.
Having said all that, the people I follow are some who actively participate in the monthly Top100 Leaderboards program by @AdamGT, those who are regularly involved in the TRAC and TORM road drawing programs by @SholaIB, and a few others who asked to follow me and I followed them back.
Very well said @TusharSuradkar. I come back multiple times during the day to see if there are any follow-up responses to interesting threads I’d read or participated in earlier.
Why This Happens
Why Following Matters
How We Can Improve
My Perspective
