Google’s New Features and What They Mean for Your Businesses

Cashmanager | 7 years ago

As part of Google’s mission to organise the world’s information, the global technology giants have announced two new features. Google News Feed and Google Posts create a user-friendly experience and allow businesses to effectively reach new audiences, promote content and showcase new products.

Google News Feed

Google’s latest feature has leveraged on data driven insights and machine learning to create a customised user experience. Google News Feed will present users with a list of relevant content based on their previous search history, geo developments and user topic picks. Although similar to the Facebook news feed, content is generated exclusively by user habits and not by associated social circles and suggested content. Presented in a scrolling list of images and texts, the feature constantly learns from your behaviours to present you with engaging and personalised information.

As well as personalised news presented to you when you open the app, users are able to access additional content that is relevant to the topic. Check out the video for examples. This gives users a holistic understanding of the news topic with multiple sources, angles and even fact checking. This is certainly an improvement from the Facebook news feed which was often under criticism for fake news.

As News feeds will be controlled by user search and locations, businesses could benefit from the new app by showing up as suggested content when people search for information relevant to your business. This will be particularly beneficial to companies who have adopted a digital approach and regularly produce content to increase reach through blogging and SEO. At its release, there have not been any public plans for businesses to pay to target advertising, but it won’t come as a surprise when we see targeted ads on the front page of its mobile app in the near future.

Google Posts

Last month, Google announced their Posts on Google which allows local businesses to post content directly to Google’s results page. With the option to post videos, images, content and even GIFs, businesses can reach their target market, promote their service and drive people back to their website. Posts can even be shared with friends on social media.

With 82 per cent of people using search engines to find out local information, Google Posts is an opportunity to provide relevant content about your industry and promote your businesses. Promotional content we expect to see will include special offers, menu changes, extended opening hours or new products and services. Posts can also include custom call to actions such as scheduling an appointment or purchasing a product.

Google Posts is available now for all Google My Business customers.