Google Philippines teamed up with the Department of Trade and Industry and the Department of Tourism to provide these agencies free ad credits that they can use not only to help increase awareness on COVID-19 but also to help uplift the livelihood of micro, small and medium enterprises affected by the pandemic.
Google Philippines head of government affairs and public policy Yves Gonzalez said the company’s efforts in recent months were focused on improving web searches and promoting the new tabs where MSMEs are given virtual space to promote on Google and YouTube for free.
“The team dispensed Google Search ad credits to enable the Philippine government to increase awareness for its COVID-19 response efforts. Today, we’re happy to share that in addition to our initial government agency partners Department of Health, the Presidential Communications Operations Office and the Department of Education, we now also have search campaigns running from both the Department of Trade and Industry and the Department of Tourism. This is in line with Google’s efforts to help the country towards economic recovery,” he said.
Google Shopping Tab previously had paid ads listing available for online sites. Free listings are currently available on that section. Scrolling down the tabs would be free listings, enough to encourage more Filipino companies to actually start listing their products so that they’re discoverable on search.
Google said these benefits of technology could be harnessed for the safe rebuilding of the economy and improvement of lives of millions of Filipinos.
Beyond digital upskilling training, Google aims to help small businesses by inspiring them through stories of hope from the MSME community.
Through the MSME Caravan program, MSMEs will be guided on how to grow their business efficiently through a wide array of digital tools such as Google My Business and Primer app as well as access to experts.
The training program has reached more than 14,000 business owners this year. MSMEs interested to join the training can register through the campaign website.
Collaborating with the DTI since early this year, Google has been participating in several online webinars including the first Control+BIZ: Reboot Now! webinar in April, Series 2 of the same webinar in May, Series 3 featuring tourism in July, Series 4 featuring food tourism in September and the Youth Entrepreneurship Program in October. YEP aims to help young Filipino entrepreneurs start up their own business or digitalize their existing business. Othel V. Campos
Further collaboration with DTI on the Google My Business is now fully online. MSMEs that want their business listings verified on Google My Business can sign up at DTI’s Google My Business Page on its e-commerce website.
“Going now to our collaboration with the Department of Tourism, in the past several months, we went on an online nationwide tour, visiting different DOT regional offices, virtually to train accredited tourism establishments on Google My Business to enable them to be searchable on Google search, and Google Maps,” Gonzalez said.
As local tourism slowly and safely reopens up, Google looks forward to working more closely with the Tourism Department in highlighting the best of the Philippines.
“And in line with supporting safe local tourism, Filipinos will soon be able to discover things to do, and places to go in the Explore tab on Google Maps, as recommended by the DOT. By following the DOT profile on Google Maps, people can get recommendations that range from restaurants and shopping malls, to cultural attractions and other tourism activities across the country,“ Gonzalez said.
He said MSMEs stand to gain more exposure if and when they maximize YouTube as an added platform to expand their audience and viewership.
“Since the start of the quarantine, we’ve seen over 50-percent growth in YouTube watch time year-on-year with now over 14 million unique adult monthly viewers. We believe this presents a great opportunity for MSMEs in the Philippines, and we wanted to share some ideas on how small businesses can fully tap the potential of YouTube for their business,” he said.
“DTI has been building a valuable collection of video training content through its webinars that a lot of Filipino small businesses could benefit from and what better way to make video content easily available, searchable, rewatchable and even download these videos for offline viewing than YouTube,” Gonzalez said.
The DTI relaunched its Youtube channel in August to maximize the usefulness of its video library. Every day, the agency uploads two to three pieces of content from the various online trainings that they have been holding.
Gonzales said the DTI has been doing a great job uploading useful content, curating them into organized playlists and putting together a one stop shop video channel that small businesses could really benefit from.
“Aside from DTI, we at Google also have our own dedicated channel for small businesses, providing video resources that help MSMEs get inspired by stories from fellow business owners, get quick answers to getting things done and learn more about available tools to them like Google My Business, you can visit this channel@youtube.com/googlebusiness,” he said.
He said YouTube creators have been using the power of the platform for inviting small businesses to reach out to them, so that they can help create more awareness for their products and services for free.