The Facts About Yelp for Small Businesses

Yelp tends to be the primary go-to site for people wanting reviews on businesses. Whether your business is on Yelp as a form of online reputation management or simply because that’s where your customers/potential customers hang out, it’s important to understand the facts about Yelp.

So, it’s time to get the facts straight:

1. Most of its traffic is from its homepage
2. Restaurants aren’t the biggest category
3. Encouraging customers to post reviews is a bad idea
4. Those “People Love Us on Yelp” stickers? You’ve gotta earn them
5. Yelp provides free signage via Flickr
6. Yelp has paid for reviews in the past
7. Customer service appears to have a strong effect on reviews
8. Every star in a review leads to a 5-9% jump in revenues
9. Yelp tends to favor independent businesses over chains
10. Business owners can dispute reviews on Yelp
11. Legal threats for bad reviews can trigger “The Streisand Effect”

To read more details, check out this post on Mashable.

There are two points on this list that I found surprising. One being that restaurants aren’t the biggest category but that shopping is. The second point that I found surprising was that encouraging reviews is considered a bad idea. Yelp actually discourages against this practice. Rather than consumers potentially feeling as though they are being used in a promotional means, Yelps prefers the reviews happen organically and not because of any form of coercion.

What Yelp fact were you not aware of?

Like this post? Connect with Erika Barbosa on Google+.

Intercept Bad Reviews Before Broadcasted Online

Have you ever had an experience at a business establishment where you wished you could voice your concerns to the manager but not in a confrontational kind of way?

TalkToTheManager might just have the answer!

While listening to The Social Hour podcast, TalkToTheManager was featured as an interesting service to check out. It is described as a way for customers to give anonymous feedback/comments to business owners/managers via text message. The business owners then have the ability to respond in order to address customer service, product, and facility issues before a bad experience becomes a bad online review.

Benefits for the businesses include:

• Managers’ personal cell phone numbers stay private
• Discover issues you didn’t know existed
• Turn off messages temporarily whenever you like
• Comments and responses can go to multiple managers

This service is intended to intercept a bad review before it is broadcasted online. I think this concept could actually work too. People want to be heard and this may provide the instant acknowledgement and response that is desired by customers. The goal is, if handled appropriately, the review that is eventually posted online turns out to be portrayed in a more positive light.

For me, it doesn’t have to be just about bad service either. I am more than happy to share a positive experience with a manager as well.

How could your business make use of this service?

Like this post? Connect with Erika Barbosa on Google+.

Image credit: Johan Larsson

Simple Tip for Monitoring Your Online Reputation

Are you looking for a simple and cost effective way to monitor your online reputation? There are a few quality online reputation management (paid) tools in the market, but if you are looking for a solution that you can implement right now, the answer is – Google Alerts.



You can set up Google Alerts to deliver via email or RSS feed. Nowadays, I receive more emails than I can keep up with, so the RSS feature is perfect.



How do you set up Google Alerts?



1. Go to http://www.google.com/alerts

2. Select the type of alert you want to be notified about

3. Select how often you want to be notified

4. Select the volume for the alerts

5. For the “Deliver To” field, select the email address you would like the alerts sent to OR “Feed” for the RSS option



You must be signed into your Google Account for the RSS integration to automatically occur. The RSS option will then automatically link the Google Alert to your Google Reader account.



Now how simple was that? :)

InternetMarketingClub.org Presents Becoming Badass! Strategies to Build Your Online Reputation

Join Jessica Kizorek, Founder of the Badass Business Women movement, as she presents, “Becoming Badass! Strategies to Build Your Online Reputation.” The Internet is overflowing with experts, newsletters, white papers, websites and Facebook fan pages. The sheer amount of data is overwhelming, and chances are your messages are blending in.

Unless, that is, you have a personality. A BIG personality.

It’s not about being loud and obnoxious. But it is about being authentic, animated, and larger than life.

As a business professional there’s a certain protocol: Be professional. Be appropriate. “Let your hair down” after work, not from 9-5. Badass Business Women embodies the opposite. We encourage men and women alike to be outrageously self-expressed. We give you the freedom to be yourself. We challenge you to throw your personality into your business. Business is no longer about fitting in. It’s about standing out.

This presentation will cover the following topics:

• Defining your edge
• Attracting attention in a crowded marketplace
• Authentically providing value
• Serving others vs. Selling
• Seducing your prospects into falling in love with you
• Why "bigger" is better

Jessica Kizorek is an adjunct professor at the Miami Ad School, the author of 5 books, a public speaker, consultant, and video producer. Professionally, she trains businesses to build profound relationships with the people who matter most. She also travels the world producing documentary films for non-profit organizations and being a regular correspondent for CNN.

This free webinar will take place Wednesday, December 15, 2010 12:30pmEST – 1:30pmEST. To register and for more information please visit: Becoming Badass! Strategies to Build Your Online Reputation