Feb 21, 2022
Can Jasper write Google My Business Posts? Let’s give it a try!
Testing Jasper’s attempts at GMB Posts. Day 2 of 5
On Friday, I wrote about my experience using Jasper, an AI copywriting tool, to write a blog post quickly without sacrificing quality. Ironically, my blog post is about how to quickly write blog posts … hey, why not? After all, my website is about DIY Marketing!
Today, I thought I might use Jasper to see how it does at writing some Google My Business posts. I typically write about 150 GMB posts per month (give or take), mostly for law firms. So, let’s see what Jasper can do!
Day 2: Can Jasper write Google My Business (GMB) posts?
First, I chose the “Google My Business — What’s New Post” template.
The app prompts you to input a business update, a company or product name, and a tone of voice. You can also select how many outputs you want. I choose 2. I click “Generate” and cross my fingers.
Unfortunately, as I rather suspected it might, the output is pretty much useless. In fact, one of them again has notes from or for the developer, as it did yesterday. I think they *may* need to spend a little more time testing this product? Here is what it came up with:
Hmmm… let’s get to the major problems first, which I circled in red above.
In the first output, you can see notes that were left by or for the developer. Clearly, they should not be included.
Strike one.
In the second output, it is suggested to include a phone number. Unfortunately, this is not allowed and will likely get your post rejected. Here is what Google’s guidelines say:
Avoid “phone stuffing”
To avoid the risk of abuse, we do not allow your post content to include a phone number. You can make your phone number available on your Business Profile or website.
Instead, you can attach a “Call now” button to your post that uses your verified Business Profile phone number.
Strike two.
It also seems to me that Jasper is basically just using the exact update that I put in without adding much (any?) value. Not to mention the tone doesn’t sound very professional to me.
Strike three.
Okay, normally I would say three strikes and you’re out, but I am not ready to give up considering the success I had on Day 1.
I decided to try again. I go back to Google’s guidelines to see exactly what they say about GMB What’s New posts. Here is their example:
What’s new: Provide general information about your business. You can include a photo or video, a description, and an action button. For example, a restaurant can make a post to promote a new menu item.
Okay, maybe Jasper would do better which a post to promote a restaurant item. Luckily, I have a client for that case as well! So, I update my inputs and change the tone of voice to casual and click the generate button.
Well, this one is better, although I am not sure that it is very useful considering it really just repeated what I already wrote. I could easily add another sentence or two myself. Also, note that the second one included the word “casual” and then started repeating what it had already written. I cleared it and clicked generate again.
Things are really starting to get strange now. Notice that Jasper has decided to include hours, which are not correct for my client, but I could easily fix that, but it randomly puts in an offer for free chips and salsa and says something about not having enough tables and being featured on The Food Network.
Where is this coming from?
I check their help articles and find one titled “Write a Factually Accurate Article” … here is what I find out:
Filler “Facts”
“When you see Jasper give you a citation, a random name, a phone number, an email, or even a social media handle, those are what we call filler texts. You will want to replace those with the correct information.
Jasper writes creatively based on patterns he has seen across the internet. Those “facts” NEED to be replaced by you (as the editor) almost all the time. He gives you an idea of what your next piece of content could look like based on what you’ve already written. So, in essence, they are a pattern for you to go back in and correct the information so that you can add that to your content.
As Jasper continues to write, he will likely make up some facts you’ll want to correct, but seeding him with correct information will significantly increase the chances of him writing accurate information. Feed Jasper those facts as you write to ensure that what Jasper is writing about is correct.”
Okay, that makes sense. I can work with that.
Conclusion
I would not use Jasper to write GMB posts at this time. My suggestion would be that they have an input to include the website and then they could easily pull info from it into the posts, making them more likely to be relevant.
(Damn. That’s a good idea. Does that tool exist? If not, maybe I should create it!)
I am not saying that Jasper can’t be used to write GMB posts, it just isn’t for me. My pain point has never been writing short posts, which is what I write on GMB, I am mainly seeking help with longer-form content. But, it was certainly worth a try because if I could shave off even one minute on each GMB post that I write, that would add up to several hours of time saved every month.
I think I also need to keep in mind that “Jasper is designed to write creatively, not factually.” However, they also say on their website that “Jasper can write a factually accurate article when you help him know which facts to include by providing them yourself.”
I think maybe there is still much for me to learn about Jasper.
So, although I will not be using Jasper to write GMB posts at this time, I am still pretty excited to see what else I can do with it. Check back soon for my next test of Jasper!
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Thanks for reading and please feel free to leave comments below!
