2022
Hello, Local Guides,
Last month was so thrilling for Local Guides from Sindh because for the first time we got an invitation to talk about the Local Guides Program in a TV Show for Sindh TV Which has a Vast Viewership on TV with nearly 240k Subscribers on Youtube & which is so much famous in Pakistan, especially in Sindh Province which has a population of around 50 million people, and also for the people who live abroad and understand the Sindhi language.
First of All, we want to say Big Thanks to the Local Guides Program, because of all the honor and respect we got, it's just because we are Local Guides, and we are following the footsteps of great Local Guides of the program, who taught us. Otherwise, who knows us? Through the Local Guides program, we learned something useful not only for any country but for the whole world and the people who live in this world.
So I submitted the Meet-up on Connect to make sure that anyone (who lives in Pakistan and who is on Connect) can watch this show live, and we promote the banner of the show by our social media groups as well.
Pre Meetup Practices :
Before the 7th of March, the Show date, we met 3 times after our working hours at night time, and prepared topics to talk about, and allocated topics for each of us. Unfortunately, we missed @sheeraz , who was supposed to come from Hyderabad Sindh, but due to an accident in his family, he was not able to join us in this show. But we distributed topics among us and remembered his great passion during the show (Sheeraz is a great Sindhi Speaker and has a great grip on related topics, and he was the person who corresponded to Producer of Sindh TV for this show ), to make a flow during answering the expected questions by the Show Host.
We were a team of Three Local Guides, Me, @Bilal_shaikh & @Anonymous for this session, and It was another great experience for us after the Radio Show last month.
The Show Time :
We reached the Sindh TV Studio around 9:00 am, the show time was 10:00 am, but we wanted to prepare ourselves for this show because we never experienced Cameras in our life. And before the TV show, we encountered getting Makeup as well 😅 but not a good experience, that angry lady just take something in a brush and put on our faces like she was painting a wall 😂
So Shows started and Host Irshad Jagirani who is like a Celebrity in Sindh Province by his social media activities and because he is a famous Sindhi Poet started with some long greeting sentences to his audience and then came to the Introduction of Local Guides.
And invited us to explain about the Local Guides program and wanted to know how we can Support Small Businesses of Sindh by Google Maps and Local Guides program?
So Bilal Shaikh started by the topic of what a Local Guides program is based on.
He explained the local guides Program so well and educated the audience about Google Maps Contributions and Local Guides Connect as well.
Then I joined the conversation and added more points about the real benefits to any country and community by the whole Local Guides program.
Supporting Small Businesses By Google Maps :
The next question was expected, and it was about How can we support and increase small businesses of the country by Google Maps?
Swalay Muhammad, who has great knowledge in this specific field, explained everything from start, that how a business can add by an owner using Google Maps add location, how anyone can update all necessary information and their products to Google maps? And how anyone can claim his/her business by using Claim this Business option on Google maps profile (if a business is already added and visible on Google maps)
Bilal Shaikh and I also explained in detail, the positive impacts of Google maps in the development of the local economy and local businesses. The big example from which they understood easily was online taxi services all over the world, which is dependent on the directions of Google maps.
And the major benefit from Google maps is that, especially anyone who has a physical business, like a small shop, restaurant, Dhabas, factory, office, and they don't have any website or if they cannot manage/afford any webpage, they can also introduce their main dishes or products with timings, pictures, phone numbers and website by "own this business" option.
I also like to explore people during map editing walks, when people feel curious about why it's important to their businesses in Google maps and what benefits they can get by uploading the information on Google Maps.
We also talked about Google my Business App, how anyone can get a free website and then can update their businesses from time to time.
Indeed, Supporting Local And Small Businesses was the main concern for us for Salam Sindh Tv Show on Sindh TV, But along with this important topic, in these two hours show, We covered many important topics in it as well, such as
- What is the Local Guides Program
& Who are Local Guides?
- How can we help people by our helpful contributions?
- How can we let people know about amazing places in Pakistan by Google Maps and Local Guides Connect?
- How can we help Differently-Abled people by our actions and especially by Google maps and Local Guides Connect?
- How can we promote small businesses by Google maps and Google my business?
- What is Crowdsource App, and how can we help people who are seeking help from Google for education purposes?
It was almost a two hours live show for Pakistani Viewers but international Viewers broadcast it with their repeat transmission with YouTube.
Here is the link to the show "Salam Sindh", the language used in this show was Urdu and a little bit Sindhi, to let everyone understand who was watching in Pakistan.
Our Expectations by Local Guides TV Show on Sindh Tv :
Overall it was an unforgettable experience for us. We got some grresponsesonse from the Producer and Host of the program because as they said, we cannot give you an exact idea, but hundreds of people around the world and especially Sindh will watch this show. But still, we don't know the real acknowledgment, but we did this amazing job as a responsible citizen and Local Guides, to create more awareness in our country regarding wonderful benefits (not financial) to contribute to the Local Guides Program.
And here are some of the photos in this Google Photos Album which we captured during the Live Session.
Congratulations to you & your team, you are doing great job bring awareness to local people for supporting small businesses that great initiative by u all. Happy to read your post it gives us motivation. Thanks & all the best for all future project of awareness you all will do in advance.
Shukriya @Tejal yes it was really a wonderful experience for us, because we knew that too many people were watching us, listening us.
Thanks for your kind words. 🙏
