I work as a full-time IT Helpdesk operator. My hobby is photography. After work and during weekends I like to travel and take pictures of nature, places I visit, people I met at events. I usually edit photos with computer and share them on social media. I have a lot of friends to share my experience, but it is not enough for me. I tried to find a better place to upload pictures for a bigger audience to reach. And I found Google Maps. I joined the Local Guide program two years ago. The first picture I uploaded to Google Maps was taken by mobile phone and it looked terrible. Just look at this bad quality view of supermarket Akropolis in Kaunas:
You can guess, this picture is not very popular, but it has over 1000 views now because the place is very popular. And my most popular picture with the biggest number of views (120 000) is taken near Vilnius with a mirrorless camera using manual focus:
These pictures as day and night represent my experience in photography during these two years. I have uploaded over six hundred photos and have almost 2 million views now. Most of them are edited in photo editing program. I will not tell now the whole process I do, we can discuss it at the Connect Live event or personally later, but it takes a lot of time to make the result I ready to share.
Photos can help to decide to visit place or not, but eye-catching photos with helpful reviews are key factors to succeed. These factors are very important in case you want to add a new place to Google Maps. I already added six new ones. First pictures of the new places must be very informative and realistic without any drastic color filters.
But a review of the place must be not always as a place owner like. I always write my subjective opinion based on my experience. Reviews are the best place for discussion. I like to read them as much as I can, before the visit. The more I read reviews - the better knowledge I get about place. I also try to think about people, what their expectations were and was my review helpful. I also try to help people by answering some questions. My mobile phone sometimes gets reminders to answer questions somebody asked in Google Maps and I always try to do my best.