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What is a Local Guide?
In 2016, there were about 5 million Local Guides. Today, there are more than 120 million Local Guides worldwide.
Since 2015, with the goal of continuously expanding its service, Google launched Local Guide.
The idea is to assign a status to every internet user who has posted at least one review, rating, photo, or suggested an edit on a Google Business Profile page Google Business Profile.
Google's goal is twofold.
The first is to enrich Google Business Profile listings with quality, relatively recent content that truly reflects reality since this information is provided by consumers and not by the businesses themselves.
The second is to create a community just like Facebook or Instagram.
Google's gamification
To encourage users to post more content, Google wanted to gamify this new feature. There are actually 10 Local Guide levels. To level up, you need to earn points. To earn points, you simply post reviews, add photos or videos, add new places, etc. In total, you can earn points through 9 different ways, which you can see in the screenshot below. For example, if you add a place, you earn 15 points; if you post a review, you earn 10; if you leave a rating, you earn only 1. Level 1 is reached by performing a single action. For level 2, you need 15 points. For level 10, you need 100,000 points...
What is the benefit of leveling up as a Local Guide?
For users, starting at level 4, you get the first badge. Badges make our posts more visible.
Additionally, they gain privileges such as early access to new Google features and exclusive perks granted by their partners.
Since 2016, Google also organizes the Local Guides Summit where the American giant invites the best contributors from around the world. In 2017, the event gathered the top 150 Local Guides from 62 countries compared to 75 participants from 37 countries the previous year.
What are the stakes for businesses?
As mentioned earlier, for Local Guides with a badge (level 4 or higher), their reviews are more visible.
For businesses, it is therefore important to respond to reviews left by these users, lest a negative review without a response appears at the top of your Google Business Profile listing.
In the image above, you can see a level 5 Local Guide badge on the first comment and a level 7 on the second. These appear directly on a listing that has 417 reviews.