Claiming Local Listings In and Out of Crisis – Part 2

Updated and accurate local listings are vital to maintaining a robust localized marketing presence. Through local listings, consumers can easily find details about your local business without having to visit your website or dig for information. Consumers crave convenience, and thorough local listings provide that convenience. While claiming and updating your local listings should be a part of your general marketing strategies, what happens when a crisis occurs? Whether it’s COVID-related, a weather event, or something else that causes your business to change business as regular, how will this impact your local listings? This blog breaks it down. If you missed our first blog post in this series focused primarily on updating your local listings amid COVID-19, check out our blog on the topic. 

Top Platforms for Local Listings 

Before we get started explaining how to keep your local listings updated regularly and amid a crisis, let’s look at which platforms you should spend your time on when it comes to listings. Currently, Google Business Profile, formerly known as Google My Business, is the platform utilized most by multi-location businesses regarding local listings, but Facebook and Yelp are also important. Our 2021 Localized Marketing Benchmark Report analyzed how leaders in localized marketing were performing in local search, including what percentage of their local listings were claimed across the three major platforms mentioned above. Data from the report found that, on average, the multi-location businesses studied had claimed 94 percent of their local listings on Google, 97 percent on Facebook, and only 80 percent on Yelp. Is your multi-location business meeting or exceeding these averages? After claiming all of your local listings, it’s time to ensure they are updated and accurate. For more details on updating your local listings regularly, our blog on the topic can help. 

How a Crisis Impacts Your Local Listings

When a crisis occurs, it’s crucial to think about how this should affect your local listing strategy and how to use it to strengthen your multi-location business’s online visibility. How it impacts your local listings depends on how long the crisis lasts. For instance, when COVID-19 hit in March of 2020, many businesses suspended their in-store offerings for weeks or even months. While most businesses are past closing indefinitely for COVID-19, staffing shortages have started to impact many industries across the United States. Because of staffing shortages, many multi-location businesses have had to adjust their hours of operation or reduce services from time to time. Similarly, there may be an ice storm or flood in an area where your business has a location, which may cause it to close for a day or two. Whether it’s COVID-related or not, any changes that impact a specific business location should be portrayed within your business’s local listings.

The sooner your business updates its local listings when a change occurs, the easier it will be for a consumer to find accurate business information. Has your business reduced its hours of operation? Are takeout and delivery an option at your local business? Make sure these questions, along with others, are answered in your local listings. Even if the changes will only last a day or two, it’s critical for your business’s local listings to provide accurate and real-time updates about your business. During a crisis, consumers are already overwhelmed, and you want to make sure that your business isn’t adding to their worries. If a consumer can’t get all of the information they need about your business through local listings, they will likely move on and use a competitor when making a purchase. 

Updating Local Listings Amid A Crisis 

When something happens that impacts one of your business location’s operations, and it is often a stressful situation. The last thing you want to do at that time has to worry about how you’re going to update your local listings. Coming up with a comprehensive local listings strategy ahead of time and a plan for what to do when a crisis occurs is critical. Whether it’s impacting all of your business locations, or just a few, it’s essential to have the ability to update your local listings at a moment’s notice. That’s where SOCi comes in! 

SOCi Listings can help your multi-location business manage all of your local listings from a single platform. SOCi empowers you to manage your business listings at scale and optimize your online presence and local search rankings effectively. From syncing, updating, and managing your local listings to custom audits and profile recommendations to the flexibility for local managers to make their updates with corporate oversight, SOCi Listings covers every step of the process to propel your listings to the top of search results. It’s time for your multi-location business to be able to update your local listings at a moment’s notice without adding extra worry to your marketing team. What are you waiting for? For more information on how SOCi Listings can help increase your multi-location business’s online visibility, request a demo today!