Share your best tips for other Local Guides in the New Year here

[Batmangundemc]

Hi for everyone İ m webmaster of www.batmangundem.com

I live in Batman and interested in Batman's companies

[tonmoy]

Hi everybody /

I am a new & junior local guides of google , our Developing area is Satkhira ,khulna, Bangladesh. And try to add our most popular places , but i am not continue Developing our local area , some time work with google Maps,   

[JérémyN]

Hi everybody !

I would like to share a few pieces of advice from my personal experience and from the contributions I have seen :

Always watch out for places with missing information, like missing photos or too few reviews. You can do it when you are in the street, checking for example for the closest places with no registered opening times/ website/ phone number and there go on site to gather the information which is almost always written on the front door.

Feel free to share inside photos of the places you visit, such as the hotel rooms or the food at a restaurant, so the viewers can better "feel" the atmosphere of the place, but try to avoid posting photos of the storefront because most of the time it doesn't bring more informations to the viewer than a quick glance at Street View. Always try to post new content, try to notice things that don't have their photo on Google Maps yet, such as the latest dish from your local restaurant or the drinks in the brand new concept-bar that just opened in your town.

As for the reviews you write, I think it's important to be very precise when talking of your experience ; don't post a two-word review (for example "Nice place") but try to describe the general atmosphere and to bring a little something to your viewers, like a small thing or a detail you really enjoyed and you would like to share, or something that make the place better than the other ones in its area.

As for me, I don't like complain too much about the places when having a bad experience. I prefer to say what's wrong directly with the people working there so they have a chance to make it better, rather than trashing them online. But sure it's good to inform the potential future customers about a place they absuletely need to avoid.

Never, ever, ever post a review about a place you have never been at ; your review would be at least incomplete or too generic, or worse, false. I know some people could find it tempting to evaluate all the McDonald's restaurants of their country just to earn a lot of Google Maps points and to reach the highest levels ; but for everyone that wants to stay honest, please always ask yourself : "what can I say to the readers that they don't already know ?"

Jérémy

[StevenOliveira]

I have learned quickly that the best way to contribute is while you are at the location, or immediately after you leave.  Your memory and details are considerably more accurate and detailed when your contribution is fresh.  Sometimes when I don't have a choice to add the contributiuon until I am back home, I notice some details may be forgotten.   
Remember to add as much information as possible.  I try to imagine myself looking for information on this location, and not knowing anything about it.... that helps you think of more questions people might have about it.

[DanielK]

Empece a dejar fotos y reseñas para tener un historial de donde había ido, ya que me gusta viajar mucho tengo un montón de información pero a medida que lo hacia me fue gustando mas y mas ayudar a otros con la elección de su hotel, café, bar o lugar favorito.
hoy en día no voy a un lugar si mirar las opiniones de los demas

[McValdirC]

Was so good, and pleasure to help many people around the world by Google Maps.

I´m greatfull and happy to enjoy Maps and now that many people use to be guided by my articles and photo.

During 2017, I hope help more people as well as I made in 2016 or greater.

Best Regards!

Smith Inocêncio César Diogo

[BrendanC]

When you are in a new place on vacation, a lot of times I will have Google Maps open to navigate, but I also used the info about local businesses to see which places were open.  If you find the information is wrong, as in, you are wasting your time visiting places that are closed, it can be useful to make a note of it on Google Maps so that other people won't experience that.  For instance, I found on Maui in Hawaii that a lot of businesses aren't open in the afternoon on Monday, so finding a restaurant open around that time was difficult, I tried to improve the map detail by posting the hours so hopefully the next people visiting there won't have that same frustration.

[VictorW]

Google reviews are consumer friendly- I like focusing on price points 

[يوسفا]

It such an amazing countries..

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@carment wrote:

tl;dr Don't be afraid to express yourself.

Being firmly in the "Jeremy Clarkson" camp of satire and bombasticness I typically dream up huge flowery verses with all the useful facts hidden between the lines. 

If you're reading this and say "oh God not again", think back to a time where epic works of literary art invited you to enjoy hours of reminiscing about your own take on the world, and where Arnold Schwartzenegger stood amid the newly terraformed atmosphere of Mars asking himself and the audience if this really was a dream - everything in life is an opportunity to enjoy and interpret, and share your own experience with others. 

So that being said there might be an element of "customer expectations" to it here; some people go around reading reviews asking if there are public restrooms and whether people are saying it is clean... what entices me to get out of my basement couch is some absurd fantasy of international cat armies and saluting to a pair of sheep.

Oh I did make an actual review like this some time ago; stay tuned for part 2 which does literally, involve a field of sheep...
https://www.localguidesconnect.com/t5/Share-Your-Photos-and/Good-Meowning-A-Malaysian-Tall-Story/m-p...

Or maybe I'll write something about a place that ended up giving me one of the best photos ever in Singapore...

Seletar Reservoir, Singapore

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Amazing 

[OshriY]

Hey everyone! 

I know that for me is very important to actually feel the environment of the place, that's why I like to share live photos of the place itself ☺️