You are overlooking a huge brand integrity issue in an extremely visible location. This may come as a surprise to you, because you’re probably spending significant time and money on ensuring your logos are being used correctly and that your messaging is on-strategy online, in broadcast media, and in print. But based on field results we see, you are probably like many other great brands and overlooking image spam on Google+ Local listings.
Check out some of the more interesting examples we’ve seen of image spam in unmanaged Google+ Local listings:
Here’s a closeup on one of these, “interesting” visuals.
Here’s another example – prior to Google revamping the look of Google+ Local pages last week, this image appeared at the righthand side of the page. Now it’s been placed in such a manner that it looks like it’s Nordstrom’s official logo as it appears in the upper left circle next to the brand name:
And here’s the up-close look at that “new logo”:
And here’s one more for good measure, also appearing in the new upper left circle area – wonder if Wal-Mart knows they have a new face of their brand – or if he knows he’s the new face of their brand:
I’m not privy to strategy sessions with these particular clients (though I’d be happy to – feel free to get in touch, folks) but I’m going to wander out onto a limb and guess these are not commensurate with brand standards.
And these are just a couple of examples. We commonly see other brands,
With the visibility that location listings have now – they show up just behind your web site on most branded searches and around the 3rd organic spot in category searches – isn’t this a critical area for you to take command of?
This is admittedly a tough area for brands to manage, especially the larger their location count is. But there are things you can try to do. Ensure you’re claiming listings and submitted location images, logos, and product shots through a verified feed. Mark these photos as spam in the Google+ Local pages themselves. And encourage your franchisees, managers, agents, dealers, and their employees to upload photos themselves. Doing so is quite easy, and Google loves user-generated content.
It will take time, effort, and vigilance, but when your brand integrity is being compromised, isn’t it worth it?