As a business owner, it's always nice to hear compliments. They leave me feeling good inside and out, and a good compliment can get me through an otherwise tough day. I also like compliments from satisfied clients because they can help me sell and build trust with prospective clients. That's why most businesses can't help but tell the world whenever they get a good compliment.
But like everything else, praise needs to be transparent to be truly effective. When someone says something nice to you on your birthday, do you wonder if the compliment was sincere? While the compliment might be genuine, it might also be someone being nice "because it's your birthday." For the same reasons, it's hard to give testimonials on a company website a lot of weight. While they might be correct, how can we really trust a nice compliment we find on a company website? Yelp.com is a website that can help address this issue.
What Yelp.com is: Yelp.com is a website that allows users to search for and then rave, rate, and critique a business. The possibilities are endless. You can review your favorite bookstore, favorite restaurant, even your family doctor. But Yelp.com is more than a simple review website - it's also a social networking site where people can make friends, compare favorites businesses, and more. While Yelp.com originally became well-known as a source of accurate restaurant reviews, it is becoming a haven for reviews on just about any type of consumer oriented company.
Why Yelp.com is important: Yelp is experiencing phenomenal growth ? according to QuantCast.com, they've almost doubled in popularity between between October 2008 and March 2009. In March 2009, Yelp.com had more than 5.9 million visitors. Nuff' said.
Why Yelp.com will continue to grow: The best thing about Yelp is the social network. When people come to Yelp to find business reviews, they also have the opportunity to evaluate the reviewers themselves. Visitors can find out "Does the person who left this review seem like someone I would trust? Do they like the same things I do?" Yelp's strength is that visitors can evaluate both businesses AND the people who review them.
How your business can benefit from Yelp.com: How about using Yelp for free advertising? Setup a profile for your business for free, then encourage your customers to leave you a positive review. A good profile and positive reviews will drive customers to your business.
How Yelp.com can hurt your business: Bad reviews. Yelp doesn't moderate any of the reviews they receive. If an upset customer(s) leaves a bad review for your business, you have to live with it. Yelp will allow you to respond to bad comments (which is better than not responding), but once the bad review is placed the damage is done. When you respond to a bad review, the best course of action is to "kill them with kindness" and freely admit any mistakes you or your company may have made.
If you haven't done so already, it's time to check out Yelp.com.
But like everything else, praise needs to be transparent to be truly effective. When someone says something nice to you on your birthday, do you wonder if the compliment was sincere? While the compliment might be genuine, it might also be someone being nice "because it's your birthday." For the same reasons, it's hard to give testimonials on a company website a lot of weight. While they might be correct, how can we really trust a nice compliment we find on a company website? Yelp.com is a website that can help address this issue.
What Yelp.com is: Yelp.com is a website that allows users to search for and then rave, rate, and critique a business. The possibilities are endless. You can review your favorite bookstore, favorite restaurant, even your family doctor. But Yelp.com is more than a simple review website - it's also a social networking site where people can make friends, compare favorites businesses, and more. While Yelp.com originally became well-known as a source of accurate restaurant reviews, it is becoming a haven for reviews on just about any type of consumer oriented company.
Why Yelp.com is important: Yelp is experiencing phenomenal growth ? according to QuantCast.com, they've almost doubled in popularity between between October 2008 and March 2009. In March 2009, Yelp.com had more than 5.9 million visitors. Nuff' said.
Why Yelp.com will continue to grow: The best thing about Yelp is the social network. When people come to Yelp to find business reviews, they also have the opportunity to evaluate the reviewers themselves. Visitors can find out "Does the person who left this review seem like someone I would trust? Do they like the same things I do?" Yelp's strength is that visitors can evaluate both businesses AND the people who review them.
How your business can benefit from Yelp.com: How about using Yelp for free advertising? Setup a profile for your business for free, then encourage your customers to leave you a positive review. A good profile and positive reviews will drive customers to your business.
How Yelp.com can hurt your business: Bad reviews. Yelp doesn't moderate any of the reviews they receive. If an upset customer(s) leaves a bad review for your business, you have to live with it. Yelp will allow you to respond to bad comments (which is better than not responding), but once the bad review is placed the damage is done. When you respond to a bad review, the best course of action is to "kill them with kindness" and freely admit any mistakes you or your company may have made.
If you haven't done so already, it's time to check out Yelp.com.
About the Author:
Jason Lancaster manages Spork Marketing, an Internet marketing company based in Denver, Colorado. Visit SporkMarketing.com for more small business Internet marketing tips and advice.
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