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April/May Release Notes – New Bulk Management Workflow, COVID-19 Posts, Review Sources, Customization, and more…

Releases Notes is our monthly update that highlights recent product improvements we’ve made so you can easily stay up to date on what’s new.

Bulk GMB Management

We have completely reworked how users can quickly manage all Google My Business listings. Account admins can now access and edit GMB details in “live” Google Sheets. We are making it as simple as:

  1. In the new Bulk Management section, auto-populate a Google Sheet with account data with a click of a button.
  2. Make all necessary edits directly in the Google Sheet, taking advantage of all regular spreadsheet tools.
  3. Publish the edits directly to Google.

The new Bulk Management section has five sections:

Control
The central control panel for the new suite of functionality. As we build out more controls, the details will be presented in this tab.

Platform
This section is devoted to all of the variables used by the LocalClarity platform to make it easier for businesses of every size to manage their reputation and local search presence. Everything from creating “Friendly Names” and entity tags to assigning contact managers to locations. In the coming weeks, we will be adding new variables to further extend platform capabilities.

GMB Details
This sheet presents all the core variables for each location with the exception of Attributes. Each GMB variable that can be directly edited appears in light blue. Users can quickly filter to the right location(s) and make the edits. Need to update dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of locations? Just copy n’ paste the changes. When you are finished with the updates, click the update button and the details of any edited field are pushed directly to Google.

GMB Attributes
Google My Business currently supports over 200 attribute types, each connected to specific primary categories. In order to keep the primary GB Details sheet functional, we have segregated control of attribute assignment to a distinct sheet.

Facebook
While not live yet, we include a navigation placeholder in the beta release version to share our vision of the future. It is our goal to provide full and direct local listing control for The Big Four (Google, Facebook, Apple, and Bing). We hope to add similar Google Sheet controls for Facebook in June, and complete the project by July.

Instructions
Coming soon – instructional videos, best practices, error handling procedures, and roadmap items.

History
Track the success of each update push to confirm execution and check for any errors.

You can explore the new tools at Bulk Management. This is the first of our major enhancements for a materially improved user-experience for large accounts.


Google Posts Update

From the largest national brands to single-location businesses, clients are taking full advantage of the flexibility to schedule any number of Google Posts in a bulk upload. In the last couple weeks we have updated the functionality to provide:

  • New COVID-19 Post Type
  • Campaign designation field in the upload file to make it easier to track cumulative performance
  • More detailed error message set to make it easier to debug any upload challenges
  • Improved “edge case” error handling.

We strongly encourage all clients to take full advantage of this unique opportunity to advertise on Google for Free. Please let us know if you have any questions.


App Store Reviews

To take the complication out of monitoring app reviews, we’ve added to our ever-growing integration list the App Store. With this update, brands can now locate different review trends that they would’ve otherwise missed and can use the feedback as a source for research and development.

The App Store is a digital distribution platform, developed and maintained by Apple Inc, for mobile apps on its iOS operating system. The store allows users to browse and download apps developed with Apple’s iOS software development kit.

To integrate your reviews, visit the App Store Integration section of the application to upload the location URL. If you need assistance with any integration or have questions, please email us at [email protected].


Google Play Reviews

Tracking your app reviews is a quick way to discover what your user base values, where their interest lay and what needs improvement. As such, we have as well added the Google Play Store to our integration list.

Google Play by Google serves as the official app store for the Android operating system. Users can browse and download applications developed with the Android software development kit and published through Google. To integrate your reviews, visit the Google Play Integration section of the application to upload the location URL.


Logos & Icons

All profiles have been upgraded to allow for logo, icon, and favicon control. Users can go into Settings > Profile Details to override the default setting. If you happen to run Starbucks you could set each of the following for the application.

While you are in this section, you can see all of the other recent updates that allow for greater control of each profile.


White Label Control

We have made even greater customization controls available to our white label partners. Partners can now set the left and top navigation color schemes, as well as the images that power the domain-level login and signup pages. Users can play with various color schemes and preview the results before setting the application colors.


Public GMB Reviews

All users can now access the entire Google review and response set for any location – even without direct Google My Business control or authorization of the listings. All you need is the Google PlaceID for the location. You can add them to your account by navigating to Settings > Integrations and then selecting the Google in the Indexed section.

You can search for the Google Place ID here. Please note that since these reviews are sourced directly from the public profiles, the data stamps for older review profiles are unfortunately aggregated. For example, all the reviews that present on Google as being received “4 months ago” will be aggregated to a single date. Reviews collected after the initial integration will have the correct date stamp.


QOL Updates

This month we have three quality-of-life updates we hope users will appreciate.

Temporarily Closed Status

LocalClarity worked with the Google API Team to test and quickly launch the ability to mark individual locations or entire accounts as Temporarily Closed. With this latest functionality, even the largest of brands can now update their locations effectively in as little as five minutes – Potentially saving hours out of the workday.

For assistance with your bulk upload, simply email us at [email protected] with the locations you wish to update and we will execute immediately.

Advice from Google: “If a business is using an enhanced operating status (i.e., delivery, curbside pickup, takeout, etc.) and remains open, do not mark the business as temporarily closed. Instead, use the corresponding attribute to designate the business’ operating status. Using the temporarily closed status will prevent attributes from displaying on Business Profiles.”

Image Downloads

Users can now directly download their location’s image and video data directly within the application. By using this download, one can better understand the volume difference between locations, and better track the performance of media from the public versus the brand. Access account images at Settings > Data Downloads.

Post Campaign Reporting

As part of our effort to provide comprehensive Google Post functionality, we have added the concept of a Campaign as an optional field for created posts individually as well as in bulk. When creating a single Google Post, you can add a name during pop-up creation box (image below). In the bulk creation upload, you will find the field for campaign designation in a new template column.

Multi-Select Source Filters

A client request we were happy to release, users can now multi-select sources in the Review Dashboard filter. In March we added resources to make certain that all overnight review indexing is processed on a timely basis.

Reviews, Updated Connections

To provide faster and more reliable review indexing, the development team at LocalClarity periodically rebuilds review connections to support review source changes. Recently, we completed the rebuild for the medical industry review sites.

Left Nav Custom Links Update

All profiles now support up to five left navigation custom links, up from the previous hard limit of three. Along with the other updates for white-label and profile-level customization, accounts can be set to better match the designs and workflows for each client.

To create custom left navigation links, go to Settings > Custom Sidebar Tabs. You can assign a name, tool-tip, and a required icon.


As always, please let us know if you have questions about these enhancements or if you have a suggestion.

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