Testimonials about your company are good, yes, but when you really think about it, what company in their right mind would publish a negative comment on their company website? When you read other website testimonials, do you wonder if you're only getting half of the story? This is where Yelp.com comes in - to help people find compliments and testimonials about businesses that they can trust.
What Yelp.com is: A website that people can use to find and review businesses. People can review everything from their favorite coffee shop to their neighborhood doctor. Yelp is more than "just a review site," however. There's also a social network feature where individuals can compare their reviews, email each other, etc. Yelp is especially popular for reviewing restaurants, but it's becoming more and more common to see reviews for every type of business on the site.
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 you: Bad reviews, of course. Reviews aren't moderated on Yelp, so if an unhappy customer leaves you a scathing review, you'll have to deal with it. Yelp does give you a chance to respond to reviews, however, so make the most of it. Be honest if your business made a mistake, and do your best to fix the problem for the future. Take the high road no matter what you do when responding to a bad review.
If you haven't done so already, it's time to check out Yelp.com. Next week, I'll post another article about how to use Yelp for fun and profit.
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