Last week's WOMMA event for brand marketers - WOMM U. - featured the best of social media used strategically (that is 'word of mouth marketing'). One session featured Yelp founder, Geoff Donaker, sharing about the rocket ride that Yelp has been on lately.
There are 20 million folks who come to Yelp every month to hear what others are saying about brands, products and services. When I was in SF last month, I couldn't go by a store that didn't have the Yelp sticker in the window. And the woman at Giant Robot summed it up, "Yeah, this is a Yelp town..."
Geoff shared about his own personal experiences sourcing services - using reviews and submitting them. He shared about a carpet cleaning small business guy who shared that he had taken the logos off his truck as he didn't want someone he may have cut off in traffic to go on Yelp and write a negative review.
Big Question
Will reviews drive massive responsible behavior (not driving like an a**hole vs. hiding your logo). The carpet cleaner went on to change his behavior and deliver stellar service principally to drive great reviews. I am guessing that that approach is driving business via word of mouth - beyond just the Yelp reviews.
They have just begun work with major national brands. Geoff shared an experience with a vehemently negative review of a nichtclub at a W Hotel. He offered a few lessons. I wanted to call out a couple here as the negativ potential of reviews is often a barrier to brands getting more involved.
Lesson 5: The temptation to spam is strong
A revealing video interview captured how a businessman "faked" email accounts to get what he felt were legitimate reviews back up. Yelp has a spam filter that tries to catch wrongful posts. The owner tried to trump the system to get filtered reviews back up there. The result was that he was coached by Yelp on how to earn legitimate great reviews vs. gaming the system.
Lesson6: The manufactured reputation tends to backfire
A business that incented reviews from customers got slammed by "vigilante justice" who called the reviews out as shilling. Did the business offer coupons for reviews or 'good reviews'? This is a thorny issue and one at the heart of WOMMA's Ethics Guidelines. The purest form of word of mouth (reviews in this case) are those that are self-motivated. Yet brands incent influencers and customers to talk all of the time. Clearly incenting for a postive review is wrong-headed. But is incenting to write whatever review the person deems appropriate - positive, negative, neutral, nothing - is that ok?
Geoff shared about new features that allow brands to respond to bad reviews. they got a lot of heat for not doing that originally. Reviewers can hijack the system to pursue a vendetta. More likely, negative reviews are opportunities for brands to listen, take action to fix something and then let their customers know that hey heard them and took corrective action. The review system at Yelp now allows for more of that overall positive behavior.
Reviews and search are often everlooked as cornerstones of a social strategy. And of course for many brands reviews are connected with search. What's your Yelp strategy? What's your review strategy?
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