Is Your Business Using Yelp Wrong?

Yelp is a business owner’s best friend. Until it isn't

I noticed a business on a social site complaining that their Yelp reviews were being hidden. No surprise. I’m betting that business asked their happy customers to review them and the customers obliged to be helpful. I’m also betting that those customers left their one review and then never logged in to Yelp again. Yelp accurately assumes these people were solicited reviewers and hides them.

Why? Because Yelp is a social community of people helping other people find good businesses to patronize. What Yelp isn't is a place for your customers to leave reviews of your business if they aren't going to be participants in the Yelp community. Yelp is looking for people who participate socially and like to help others.  When a new user creates a single review and then stops participating, it looks fishy, and it should.

Fake reviews, solicited reviews, and paid reviews are a persistent problem for Yelp and their algorithm is set to detect those and remove them from public view. I was reading an anti-yelp site yesterday with lots of business owners complaining that their few negative reviews were showing and the positive “5 star reviews” were being hidden.

I’ll tell you exactly why that happened. Regular Yelpers reviewed that business unfavorably. Then the business owner solicited friends and regulars to create positive reviews, but those people created a Yelp account, never filled out a profile and never participated in the community beyond that one review. So, the solicited reviews are hidden and the negative reviews from trusted Yelpers are visible. This is the way it should be. I can also tell from the way some of those business owners were expressing themselves that their negative reviews were probably spot on.

Yelp can double your business or destroy it - that’s the reality.

How does a business shine on Yelp?

The answer is to let customers know you are on Yelp but not to solicit reviews from people who aren't going to become regular participants. Yelp will see a bunch of 1 time reviews and begin to view your account with suspicion of review buying. Let your Yelp reviews happen organically because you do a great job with customer service and delivering value. Never forget that Yelp is a community of people who like to share and help other people. Do a great job for every customer, whether they are a Yelper or not, and word gets out.

It is also inevitable that you’ll get a negative review, no business keeps 100% of its customers happy and one day a sourpuss will let the world know about his horrible experience at your business. It is imperative that you, the business owner, respond to those negative reviews in a professional manner. Respond with an apology that the reviewer had an unpleasant experience and mention why that might have happened (don’t blame the reviewer if you can possibly avoid it), then list the steps you are taking to eliminate the problem. Owners who come off as argumentative or arrogant will do twice as much damage as a negative review by reinforcing the negativity and convincing future readers that Mr. Sourpuss might just be right. Don’t offer to “make it right.” Doing so looks suspiciously like you are attempting to buy off the reviewer to get them to change their review.

A negative review or two isn't a business killer, but a lot of negative reviews can be when they start creating a pattern. Most people who read reviews are smart enough to know that there’s always going to be a negative or two. What a Yelp reader is looking for is a consistent pattern in the reviews. Think for a moment about how you've checked out reviews on Amazon for books or other products. Nobody has 5 stars on every review, there are always a few cranks and competitors down in 1 star territory. But a pattern of low rankings that overwhelm those 5 star reviews stands out and makes you think twice about the product. So it is with Yelp reviews.

Where should those great reviews go? Google Places (which I covered here). The bottom line in both is the same:

Provide exemplary customer service and the negatives just become noise from cranks. 

Linkedin Thought Leaders

Over the past couple of months I've found myself intrigued by a new feature on LinkedIn  Content from Thought Leaders. What’s is actually more fascinating than reading the content has been watching how various Thought Leaders are using their new content channel on LinkedIn.

Thought Leaders are good promoters by nature, that’s how they got to be leaders of thought in their respective spheres. They promote their ideas and they brand themselves well. In creating the Thought Leader space, LinkedIn provided this group with a new marketing platform to expand their reach. The more aggressive participants took to this new channel and started figuring out how to use it to their advantage instantly.

Tony Robbins, for example, started off with some original content but then shifted management of the channel over to a marketing flunky and the channel spent a few weeks as just an ongoing sales pitch for Robbins products without providing any value to the reader. In the past month the content has changed to be more tailored to LinkedIn and it appears more thought is going into who comprises this new market and how to interest them.

Richard Branson is just having his marketing team port content over from his company blog (none of which appears to be written by him.) It’s good stuff but I think the self-promotion level is higher than it should be.

Guy Kawasaki wrote some original content for LinkedIn but quickly just turned his channel into another spigot for content he is posting across his entire social network. I think this is a mistake but I also know how tough it is to generate original content for specific channels (you see how often I manage to get a blog post out here!) Writing a lot of original content is hard, especially if you’re running a business, promoting a book, setting up your next project, etc.  One thing I keep reminding myself that as a leader, my job is to innovate and market.

 Blogging is marketing and needs to be treated as such.

So, I’m hoping to do a better job at creating original content in 2013. With a book and a web app to promote, it’s time for me to start getting on the ball with my own marketing and original content. Either that, or I need to invest in a bunch of cleverly branded lolcats.

Happy New Year!

The Biggest Mistake in Social Business Networking

What’s the biggest mistake being made by business social networkers? Failure to put up a good profile picture.

Your picture is the most important part of your personal brand, it’s how people will remember you. Our brains are neurologically wired for faces, it’s the first place we look when we meet someone and the most likely thing to be remembered. The face you present to the business community is how you will be known. Your face is your brand.

Business social networking is branding and marketing, make no mistake about it. If you are going to get in the game, you need to play like you mean it and that means a good profile picture.

What is a good profile picture?

• A good profile picture shows your face, especially eyes. It has a smile. It is warm, friendly, intelligent. It makes the viewer think to themselves “this seems like a pleasant and competent person to know/do business with.” 

• A good profile picture is NOT a picture of your cat, a picture of your kid, a picture with you and your significant other, or any picture where you can’t see your face clearly. Save those for Facebook and other non-business applications. 

• A good profile picture is NOT a glamour shot. Someone should be able to immediately recognize you in person from your profile picture. We aren’t working with dating sites here, this is business. Save the funky angles to make yourself more attractive and cleavage pictures for someplace more appropriate. 

You've probably just realized that you don’t have a single picture that is good for a business network profile, which means you should get one taken. Depending on your industry, you can opt for either a standard backdrop portrait studio picture or you can go with something a bit more creative and relaxed. My personal opinion leans toward more relaxed and natural rather than stiff and posed. Whichever way you go, the picture should solidly represent who you are and, even more importantly, who you would like to become.

There is an old and wise adage that you should dress for the job you want, not the one you have. Your profile picture should also represent the job you want, not the one you have. That picture is going to create an indelible image in the minds of your business contacts - make sure the picture says what you want it to say.

Money spent on quality pictures from a professional photographer is an investment in your career, just like a good interview outfit. People will make snap judgments about your character and likability from your profile picture, so make sure it’s a good one.

Are You Getting Local Search Marketing Wrong?

Want more local business? Who doesn’t. But what’s your strategy for getting “top of mind” name recognition within your own community?

There are two primary strategies to make your business stand out locally, the first of which I’m going to cover in this post: Local Search Marketing.

What is Local Search Marketing? It’s making sure that when someone in your area is searching for a product or service you offer, your business lands highly in the search results ranking. I’m not talking about your website or SEO, I’m talking about local search. Most search engines have been weighting their results for local. Google Places, Yahoo Local, Yelp, and Bing Local are the major players in getting your local business found. If you aren't cultivating your listings with these 4 then you might be missing out on finding new customers.

Of the big 4 players, I’m going to mostly focus on the top 2; Google Places and Yelp. These are two different demographics and not every business will benefit from Yelp since its user base tends to skew age 35 and younger. If your core clientele is age 40 and up you likely won’t see as much benefit from Yelp, but you should still make sure you are listed there. You always want to be where a potential customer might be searching for you.

Google Places

This is the 800lb gorilla of local search marketing. You need to be there and you need to stay on top of Google Places as a marketing channel. If you've been in business for a while, it’s likely that you are already listed. Your next step is to claim your listing with Google and start managing it. Make sure your location data is correct - address, phone, business hours, etc.  Upload at least 3 pictures, one showing your building front and two or more interior shots. Pictures showing your friendly and helpful staff are always good as well. Make sure your offerings are keyworded so that your business shows up in searches for those products/services.

Google Places allows reviews and you might even have a few already. If you don’t, ask your customers to review you on Google and Yelp. Reviews help you climb to the top of search placement rankings. Always respond to your reviews if possible and especially if they are negative. A negative review is not the end of the world and every business will acquire at least one at some point. Respond to the review by apologizing to the customer for their bad experience and make every attempt to right things (even if the customer was at fault.) Your obvious attention to your customers will score you big points with searchers looking for good companies to do business with.

When you claim your business in Google Places you’ll be prompted to set up a Google+ account for the business at the same time. Do it and use it. While Facebook gets all the press and attention, it isn't going to help you rank higher on Google, but Google+ will. Use Google+ as a content marketing channel. Post your specials, post news about your business, post relevant content that keywords back to your offerings. For example, if you are a hair salon, you want to post tips on hair care (always make sure you keyword “hair” and “salon” into your post.) If you have skin care offerings, post content on those as well. All those pieces of content using keywords to services you offer help push you to the top of Google’s search rankings. Google likes two things: relevancy and freshness. Make your posts on Google+ relevant to your business and post at least twice a week.

Yelp

If Google Places is the 800lb gorilla, Yelp is his 600lb cousin. Yelp is very popular with people who've grown up in a digital world. Just like with Google Places, you might already be listed. Claim your business listing, get the correct info up there, post pictures, respond to reviews. Offer deals through Yelp if applicable to your business model. Businesses that master Yelp are thriving. It’s the only place I shop for restaurants and home improvement contractors today. I actually had an electrician turn down a job recently because he has so much business coming in due to his glowing reviews on Yelp that he can’t keep up. Yelp is a very, very powerful tool for certain types of businesses.

Once you've gotten your listings on Google Places and Yelp shining like marketing stars, do the same for Yahoo Local and Bing Local. You should also create a weekly marketing strategy and carve out 30 minutes twice a week to post fresh content, respond to reviews, and generally keep your marketing tight and tidy.

Get out there and use the tools to engage with your potential customers. Marketing isn't just running a few ads anymore, it’s a constant effort that pays big rewards when done well.

Don't Be a Jerk!

It is common wisdom that nobody wants to work with a jerk and social networking has made it easier to identify a jerk before you add one to your team.

While a lot of people have their Facebook pages set to private, things are a little different over at LinkedIn where all your activity is public and shared with your business network. I've been noticing that a lot of people on LinkedIn don’t take into account the persistence of their social contributions. I continue to be astonished at the number of people who forget that they are contributing/commenting under their real name, not an anonymous email account that doesn't tie back to their real identity.

I was watching the comments to an article posted by a LinkedIn “Thought Leader” the other day and my jaw dropped several times when people made flat out inappropriate comments under their business account. I suppose that these people are doing the rest of us a favor by clearly outing themselves as not ready for prime time, thus eliminating themselves as job competition. Yet it still seems like they should know better than to join a business network platform and proceed to be a jerk.

Nobody wants to work with a jerk. Nobody wants to hire a jerk. And, after watching what an election did to many people, a lot of people don’t want to be friends with a jerk, either.

One thing that’s really come around to me in the past couple of years is that the Web is a place of business for many of us. It takes very little for someone to tie email addresses together and match them to a real identity. Keeping this thought out in front has really changed the way I communicate, even when I think I’m doing so anonymously. Now, I approach everything as if it might come back to haunt me next week, next month, next year. I make I really want to own anything I put out there and I especially make sure that anything I do on LinkedIn dovetails with the personal brand that I've built there.

Social media is allowing us to see the real person behind the facades most of us erect in our day to day lives - we contribute spontaneously across our social networks and our internal editor goes silent more often. But it is critical that we keep that editor engaged when contributing socially, that old saying should guide appropriateness “the Internet is forever.” Once a comment, picture, or email hits the Internet, you can’t take it back. Control of it is lost to you forever.

That by itself should make anyone think twice before hitting the send/post button.

Social Media is About Connection

There’s a whole lot of sharing going on, but are we really connecting?

One thing that I'm finding fascinating watching people interact through social media is how much more important face-to-face has become even though we have up-to-the-second information sharing with the people in our lives. 

I think there is a distinction between the sharing of information through social media (pictures, links, videos, random political rants, etc..) and true relationships that involve trust and bonding. As businesses, we might use online search and social media to narrow down candidates for a job, but I doubt any of us would hire sight unseen. There's too much non-verbal communication that you miss without the face-to-face. When you need to build a true relationship with someone, digital communication doesn't fill that need.

I watched recently as a distant connection lost a child. The outpouring of support and sympathy came from all corners of this person’s life through social media. But then the pictures came - pictures of friends who went beyond social media and spent time face-to-face to console and grieve with their loss. Lesson: you can say you’re sorry over the Internet, but it sure doesn't take the place of an honest moment in person.

You can’t replace eye contact. You can’t replace a smile. You can’t replace the warmth of being with another person. And you really can’t replace the all the non-verbal communication that takes place where words are simply not enough. A hug says more than a thousand Facebook posts. 

Coca-Cola & Social Media Marketing

There was a great article on Linkedin the other day that discussed Coca-Cola and their social media strategy. I was dismayed by some of the comments suggesting a lot of people don’t think that social media marketing works for smaller businesses or less “glamorous” ones.

Yes, it can.

How you make social work is by providing value to people. One commenter suggested that social media wouldn't work for a copy machine company and I disagree. For demonstration, here’s how I would do a social media campaign for a copy machine company - let's call them MemoX.

The people who've chosen to become fans of MemoX are most likely already owners of MemoX products, so what we're doing is brand building to keep MemoX in the market leader position. The social strategy for MemoX is all about customer service and creating a sense of value around the MemoX brand. Their Facebook page should include a once or twice weekly post that focuses on the many great product features and how they can help customers work more efficiently.

Each product feature post should lead off with how that feature saves the customer time and helps them deliver a superior quality product to the stakeholders on their end. You can pull an entire year's worth of Facebook posts out of the product user manual that 90% of MemoX customers never read.

I would also encourage MemoX to run specials on supplies that are only available to Facebook fans, maybe once a quarter.

On a regular basis, their social guru should toss out a request for questions or issues that they can help solve, this shows their fans that MemoX is listening and cares about their customers. They also should post the occasional copy-related joke to keep things fun and informal. The key point is MemoX needs to be front and center with offering their customers valuable tips (sprinkled with the occasional giggle) that improve their work and lives. Always go back to how you can deliver more value to the customer via social media.

Lastly, nobody wants to socialize with a brand. They want to socialize with human beings that represent the brand. They aren't interested in mission statements and they really aren't interested in carefully crafted, focus-group-tested, advertising agency spin cluttering up their social newsfeed.

Social is easy. Deliver value. That's it.