Ignore Yelp at your peril

Yelp is the biggest review community in the world, yet few businesses we meet in the UK have ever heard of it - and even when they have their attitude seems to be "they're not big in the UK, so why should we bother?"

 Here we show you why you should be 'bothering'

1. Because Yelp is so massive it has great SEO; if there is a single review of your business on Yelp it will show up high in Google search results
2. One single review can be immensely damaging - it will be read by so many of your potential customers
3. Yelp recently bought Qype, which has a much larger footprint in Europe
4. Yelp is investing heavily in the UK to boost its presence (and influence) here
5. 'Yelpers' tend to write much more exhaustive reviews than, for instance, those who post to TripAdvisor
6. Yelp has partnerships with Facebook, Bing, Apple and a multitude of others to extend its reach and influence - there's a good piece on Forbes

Yelp's community is strong - they trust each other; if a single Yelper says "don't use this business" that carries a lot of weight with their fellow Yelpers. If you look carefully, beside every reviewer's identity you will see how many 'friends' they have on Yelp. In the example below 'Jen K' has 387 - how many of them will be booking this hotel?

The solution?

Engage with the 'K CD's' and 'Jen K's' before they resort to posting about your business on Yelp. Use Dialogue to get closer to your customers than Yelp ever can.