Latest / The Local Marketing Podcast with Fexingo: Small Business, Google Maps, and Local SEO / How a Local Gym Uses Google Maps Posts to Fill Classes
Transcript
- Lucas: So there's this gym in Austin called East Side Fit. Small space, no big-box budget, just a solid local reputation and a Google Business Profile they actually use. I came across them because they're doing something with Google Posts that most local businesses barely touch. Luna: Remind me — Google Posts, those are the little updates that appear right inside the Business Profile on Maps and Search, right? Lucas: Exactly. They show up under your business name, before the reviews and description. You can add text, images, sometimes a button. And East Side Fit is posting one every single day. Not random stuff — each post is tied to a specific class they're running that afternoon. Luna: Daily? That's a commitment. Most small businesses I see post maybe once a month if they remember. Lucas: Right, and that's the opportunity. Google Posts aren't new — they launched years ago — but adoption is still shockingly low. I checked a hundred local business profiles in Austin last week. Only about twelve percent had posted in the previous thirty days. East Side Fit is in that twelve percent, and they're the only gym that posted more than once a week. Luna: So what does a typical post look like for them? Lucas: It's dead simple. They take a photo of the class about to start — people on mats, kettlebells laid out, natural light — and they write something like: 'Four spots left for our 5:30 PM HIIT. Drop-in welcome, just show up. #AustinFitness #HIITClass'. They tag the location, include a 'Book Now' button if the class is on a scheduling platform. Luna: And that fills spots? I mean, are people actually scrolling Maps and deciding to drop into a gym that afternoon based on a post? Lucas: That's exactly the question I had. The owner — her name's Maya — she shared some data. Before she started daily posts, her Google Business Profile was driving maybe two or three calls a week, mostly people asking about hours. After sixty days of consistent posts, that number went to about fifteen calls per week, plus direct bookings through the button. And she attributes about half of those to the posts specifically. Luna: But how does she know it's the posts and not just more people finding her profile? Lucas: She tracks it through the Profile's own Insights. The metric she watches is 'direction requests' versus 'phone calls' versus 'bookings'. She noticed that on days she posts, the bookings spike about forty percent compared to non-posting days. And she tested — she skipped a week and bookings dropped back to baseline. So there's a direct correlation. Luna: That's pretty convincing. Forty percent is not subtle. Lucas: Not subtle at all. And the interesting part is the kind of content that works best. She tried different things — general motivational quotes, gym equipment photos, before and after shots. The best performer by far is the class preview: a real-time photo of the studio ready for class, with a count of available spots. It creates a sense of scarcity and immediacy. Luna: So it's not just 'come to our gym', it's 'come to this specific class, right now'. Lucas: Exactly. And the Google Posts algorithm likes recency and relevance. A post about today's 5:30 PM class is more likely to show up when someone searches for 'gym near me' at 4 PM. It's contextual in a way a static website isn't. Luna: I've also heard that Google Posts have a built-in expiration, right? They disappear after seven days unless you manually remove them? Lucas: Yes, they show as 'latest post' for up to seven days, then they drop into an archive on your profile. So if you don't keep posting, your profile looks stale. But that's actually an advantage — it forces fresh content. East Side Fit's profile never shows a post older than twenty-four hours because they post daily. Luna: What about the 'Offer' post type? I think there's a specific category for promotions. Lucas: There is. Google Posts has three main types: 'What's New', 'Event', and 'Offer'. East Side Fit mostly uses 'What's New' for class previews, but they ran an 'Offer' post once — 'Buy a 10-class pack, get one free' — and that post had the highest click-through rate of any they've done. About nine percent. Luna: Nine percent click-through on a local business post is enormous. Most display ads get less than one percent. Lucas: Exactly. And it cost them nothing. No ad spend, just a photo and a few lines of text. The 'Offer' post type adds a promo code field and an expiration date, so it feels more official. Maya told me that offer brought in twelve new pack purchases over the two-week promotion. That's probably a couple thousand dollars in revenue from a single free post. Luna: So the playbook seems to be: post daily, focus on specific classes, use the Offer type occasionally, and track insights. Anything else she's doing? Lucas: She also responds to every single review — positive or negative — within twenty-four hours. And she includes a photo in her response. Google's algorithm seems to reward profiles with fresh photo content across the board. So every time she replies to a review, she uploads a new photo of the gym. It's a small habit, but it keeps her profile active. Luna: That's a good tip. Most business owners reply with text only. The extra photo step is easy to skip. Lucas: Right. And I think the bigger lesson here is that Google Posts are underutilized. Every local business should be doing at least three posts a week. It's free, it's indexed, and it directly influences your visibility in local search results. The gym example proves it works. Luna: If today's episode sparked an idea you might actually use, that's exactly what we hope for. And if it did, honestly, if today was worth a coffee to you, that's the link — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's what keeps this show ad-free and focused on stuff like this. Lucas: Yeah, totally. And it's a nice way to tell us this kind of practical content is useful. We don't do sponsors, so listener support is how we keep going. Luna: Exactly. Now back to the gym — one more thing I wanted to ask: what about hashtags? Do they actually matter for Google Posts? Lucas: That's a good question. Google has never officially confirmed that hashtags in Posts affect ranking. But Maya tested it — she used #AustinFitness in one set of posts and no hashtag in another. The posts with the hashtag had about twenty percent more profile views. It could be correlation, but it's cheap to try. Luna: So use local hashtags, keep it to one or two per post, and test. Lucas: Exactly. And don't stuff them. One relevant local hashtag and maybe one category hashtag, like #HIITClass. That's plenty. Luna: Alright, so to recap: daily posts, class previews with spot counts, occasional offers, reply to reviews with photos, and test hashtags. That's a solid system for any local business, not just gyms. Lucas: Absolutely. A restaurant could post today's special. A salon could post available appointment slots. A hardware store could post a 'deal of the day'. The format is flexible. The key is consistency and making each post feel timely and specific. Luna: I think the biggest takeaway for me is that Google Posts are basically free real estate on the most visited page for local searches. Ignoring them is leaving money on the table. Lucas: Couldn't agree more. And if Maya's gym can do it with no marketing team and no budget, any small business can. That's the beauty of local marketing — the playing field is actually pretty level if you show up consistently. Luna: Next episode, I want to look at how local businesses can use Google's 'Products' tab on their profile. I've seen some creative uses. Lucas: That's a great one. A lot of people don't even know that tab exists. Let's do it.