Everyone has that friend who constantly recommends restaurants and bars that turn out to be absolutely awful. I have one in California, so that’s why I depend on the review site Yelp - www.yelp.com – before I dine anywhere unfamiliar.
On Yelp, you get honest reviews from a wide cross-section of people who dissect everything from price, product, atmosphere and service. And Yelp reviews always seem to organically find their way to the top of Google’s search engine rankings.
If you’re confident in your business, Yelp should become an integral part of your social media campaign.
I recently encouraged my favorite local café to do just that. Some background - Nestled in the heart of one of Southern California’s popular beach communities, this café has the best coffee in town, a simple yet delicious (and healthy) menu, an attractive outdoor patio, and free wifi. The customer base is extremely loyal yet small and its location is not parking-friendly. Even more challenging, the café is located within 2 blocks of a breakfast joint whose relationships with vacation property realtors create hour-long lines. On the other side is a sandwich shop opened by a popular alum from a local college - it enjoys tremendous word of mouth among the thousands of students who rent bungalows in town.
These dynamics led the family who runs my favorite café to lament that business was dangerously light.
Because the café continuously gets compliments from customers upon leaving, I wondered if writing a positive blurb on Yelp would help. That’s when I discovered numerous 5-star reviews from past customers. Turning endorsements on a social media platform such as Yelp into a marketing tool can be simple if you think logically and tactically. In the case of the café, that entails a two-pronged approach - first, they are asking every “regular” write a review and then incentivizing spillover customers who shun the one hour lines down the street to write reviews as well. For each new review, free coffees with their next meal. We are then adding a small tactical pitch designed just for Google - for Yelp reviews that specifically rate the free wi-fi, next meal is free.
If your business has mastered the four factors that drive positive (or negative) customer reviews, I encourage you to pick the most unique, Google search attractive items and develop a Yelp campaign around them. In the case of my local café, there is limited local competition offering free wifi (especially its two closest rivals down the street), and no one in town boasts electrical outlets outdoors. Encouraging reviews that use specific keywords on the cafe’s wifi is a prescription for search engine dominance and if all goes according to plan, a packed establishment for my friends all summer long.
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