Google Gets Serious About Building Business Reviews for the Web
Just this last week I joined the ranks of Google’s local reviewers. Google has quietly put the word out that it wants to enlist its own approved writers to start building reviews on local businesses. Google calls their program “Local Guides”.
You too can apply to be a writer. I am not sure what their criteria is to be approved, but as I am already reviewing local businesses and write regularly for many venues, I was approved the same day.
Here are the perks you’ll get based on the amount of reviews you write. There is no money involved, just bragging rights, really.
That being said, what is interesting is to identify is that Google considers reviews done by real people to be important. So important that it is enticing a wide variety of individuals to beef up the number of business reviews in the Google Places arena by creating a special program complete with enticements for 5, 50, and 200 review levels.
If you need help with reviews for your own business and you are not getting the action you need from Google’s Local Guides I invite you to review our Brand Booster program to help build online reviews and web visibility.
MamaBear App – Teen Driving Tracker
I love to use technology and now that my kids have a new car, because the old one had been totaled, I felt that I needed to have a little better oversight on their driving habits.
I have triplet 18 year olds who are all three brand new drivers. They love the freedom and so do I, but I worry about their safety. With a new car, I felt that there should be some accountability on being a safe driver so there’s be no more wrecks. And no speeding tickets as the new car has much more power and coolness factor.
I have searched high and low for a smartphone app that would allow me to know how fast they were driving right when they were driving. I found MamaBear. This is one of the few apps for parents that is for Android (that’s me) and iPhone (that’s them).
It is easy to set up and although you can get very stalkerish with your kids on this app – monitoring them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, I opted to only know where they were and to get an alert if they were driving over 55 mph.
In the app you can add multiple kids and multiple guardians. You can set what speed you want to get warned about. Where we live 55 mph was good. You can even set safe zones. For example I set up home and school as safe zones so I can be notified when they come home and when they are at school.
I don’t want to get too crazy about monitoring, and so am really only using this app for safe driving accountability, but I can see for some parents it may have way more uses.
So far so good. My kids can even see on a map where all family members are including Mom and Dad – that’s kind of cool. In fact that’s one of the things they liked.
You may want to check MamaBear out too. Oh, by the way, it is free. You can move to a paid version to get reports and more tracking and it is not too expensive if you felt you needed that. For me free is fine.
Get it at the following places:
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.geowaggle.mamabear
IPhone App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/ke/app/mamabear/id542203931?mt=8
P.S. I am not being paid for this review, I just found the app, am using it and wanted to share it with other parents of teen drivers who may be just like me.
Calendly – Fast and Friendly Appointment and Call Scheduling
OMG I love this calendar scheduling application. A prospect asked me to schedule a call with him this last week using Calendly. I thought it was such a cool online productivity tool that I jumped right in to use it for my own business.
First, it is important to know that Calendly is not paying me for this blog post. I have just started using it and really like it so far. For me, I schedule between 6 to 10 conference calls a week. Some of my clients have Outlook and I can do meeting invitations and others don’t. Sometimes I am stood up for my call and sometimes I have to chase a client around for a few days to either pin them down or hook up with them by phone.
Calendly looks like it is going to solve most of my problems. Here’s specifically what I like:
1. No more “What’s your time zone again?” or “Was our call Eastern or Pacific?” Calendly talks to your customer/prospect in their time zone. You enter information in yours and Calendly translates it to theirs. – Excellent!
2. You can set up all types of calls 15 minute, 30 minute, and 60 minutes are defaults in the Premium Level, but the free will just have 15 minutes or one custom sized call. I like 20 minutes for my calls but have some clients that need 30 minutes. I have full control of setting the appointment time. – Excellent again!
3. Reminders are sent to you and the client and you decide the frequency. I set mine up for 24 hours, 2 hours, and 30 minutes out. I am hoping that this will help my conference call attendees be on time and minimize being stood up on my call. – Loved this option.
4. It integrates with my Google Calendar which I sync to my desktop and all devices either with Google or with Companion Link for Outlook. Now here’s my tip. Outlook typically will take your appointments or things you put in your calendar and mark your time as busy. I found that on set up I had not times available as I have many repeating work appointments in my calendar. I opened them and set them as “free” availability – I did this in Outlook and double checked in my Google Calendar, and now I have tons of spots for clients to select from. – This is one of the best features!
5. With Calendly I feel that I am providing better customer service. Instead of me choosing a conference call time that works for me, I am letting my client be in the driver seat. I’ve even opened up evenings for chats as with my conference calling capability I can be on the road myself and call in for a conference call while on the go.
I am still trying to decide if I want to stay with the free level or upgrade to the Premium level, but so far I consider Calendly a real find and wanted to encourage you to check it out too if you live on your phone and calendar like I do.