Google has begun rolling out its business messaging capabilities to Google Maps. Messaging was first rolled out to Google My Business last year, which lets users initiate text conversations with businesses through their Google My Business profiles. Sneaky Ninja has already been updating GMB profiles for all our clients since the Medic update happened in August, so we’re already on top of this, but this new features is something all clients should know about.
Messages will appear in the side menu of the Google Maps app and can be initiated by tapping the ‘Message’ button on business profiles. Google says this should assist users with keeping personal messages separate from their conversations with businesses.
This change will also open up the GMB messaging feature to more countries. Initially, it was only rolled out to select countries. For businesses, this could potentially result in more messages being received, which is important to be aware of. Messaging is an optional feature and is turned off by default so don’t panic if you want to avoid more messages from even more platforms. If you’re not interested you can simply not turn the feature on.
Those who wish to enable messaging can do so from the Google My Business dashboard or call Sneaky Ninja and we can help you do it (or do it for you). Businesses who actively engage in messaging with customers will be able to see stats over time, such as the number of clicks on the message button, number of conversations, and the number of total messages. If your business has another team member managing your GMB profile, such as social media manager, they must be designated as a manager of the GMB listing in order to send messages.
If you have any questions please get in touch with your account manager.