Image Credit: Search Engine Land
Google continues to update the Google My Business API in order to strengthen Google’s role as a publishing destination for brick-and-mortar location marketing. Last year’s major update was about empowering businesses to manage their location data for search and maps, at which time SIM Partners launched a real-time integration with our Velocity platform. The latest API update, 3.1, helps multi-location brands do a better job monitoring how their business data changes.
We’ve always contended that a sound location data management strategy treats data as a scalable asset through ongoing management, distribution, and monitoring. Data transparency begins inside the four walls of an organization. If you can’t monitor your data, you can’t expect to provide transparent data to your customers, which is a hot-button issue in industries such as healthcare. The new update supports monitoring by alerting businesses whenever one of their local listings is status is updated.
For example, previously there was no way to receive notification via the API if a content update for a business location you were managing went from “Pending” to “Published.” For businesses that manage multiple locations, keeping tabs on the status of all listings required a person to go in and look at them within the GMB dashboard to see if anything had changed. Now, when Google changes the status of a listing, a business can be notified via the API.
Other updates include pushing new reviews to the business (instead of a business having to request them), an expansion of attributes being collected, and availability of a URL that takes users directly to the maps results, as reported by Mike Blumenthal.
Location data management is not a set-it-and-forget-it job. It’s an ongoing process that businesses must address continuously, and managing the integrity of your data with publishers such as Google, Apple, and Foursquare is part of that process. SIM Partners talks more about elements of location data management in our CMO’s Guide to Location Data Management. Contact us to discuss how we can help you treat location data like a competitive asset.
Posted by Adam Dorfman at Google My Business API 3.1 Supports Location Data Monitoring. Visit SIM Partners for more great information!