Continue reading »]]> If you’re a Yelp business owner, no doubt you saw the Important Message that went out today from Yelp talking about “reputation management” and how you can’t buy results on Yelp.

That is TRUE! You can’t pay for Yelp advertising to remove bad reviews, you can’t bribe them to take down negative reviews, you can’t pay a reputation management firm to have it removed. All of it, TRUE!

But that doesn’t mean you can’t do anything. You CAN take control of your reputation and make Yelp irrelevant to your bottom line!

Using the right customer engagement strategies, and encouraging reviews on Google rather than Yelp, focusing on building citations from all over the web and a robust internet presence that gives customers the chance to experience bits of your brilliance is what it’s all about.

Turning over the reins of your business to just one site is crazy business. And I’m pretty certain nobody here is in that business!

plus.google.com/100959901782345597097 Adryenn Ashley

Continue reading »]]> Want to get your Yelp visitors to see all your reviews? Inspire them to go look at your filtered reviews by putting this graphic up on your business page!

You want to put this on your Yelp Business Page?  Simply right-click on the photo, then click save-as, and select where you want to save it on your hard drive.  It’s that easy! With my compliments!

Do you want to learn the latest techniques to get your business seen in the best light?  Then you want to join the Reputation Builder Challenge!

plus.google.com/100959901782345597097 Adryenn Ashley

Continue reading »]]> HARTFORD, Conn. – Online product reviews can help or hurt a business.

They can also steer consumers in the wrong direction, especially when the review is fake.

The Better Business Bureau, Consumer Reports and even the Federal Trade Commission are warning consumers to be wary of online feedback and reviews of products and services.

For example, the BBB said some companies may hire writers to stack websites with positive comments about a product or negative reviews about their competitors.

“It’s bad business to do that because it’s dishonest, it’s a disservice to consumers and it’s also deceptive,” Howard Schwartz, spokesperson for the BBB of Connecticut, said.

“I guess it’s not that surprising,” Trevor Law, an online shopper said. “People are gonna do anything to sell things.”

Spotting a potential fake review can sometimes be easy if you look at its wording, according to Schwartz.

“It’s not practical that somebody would write, ‘this product integrates seamlessly into my life.’ Those are market speak words,” Schwartz said.

Most consumers won’t make repeated use of a product’s complete name in a review.

“If you’re reading it and someone’s talking about how great and wonderful it is and it’s life-saving and whatever, you might need to take that with a grain of salt,” Evelyn Mackenzie, an online shopper said.

Yelp.com is a popular consumer review website.

A spokesperson for the company said it filters reviews using its own automated system to protect consumers and business owners from fake or malicious feedback.

TripAdvisor.com, another widely-used consumer feedback site, says it also systematically screens reviews and relies on its users to report suspicious content.

The best way to get a feeling for a product is to read a variety of reviews from different sources, according to Schwartz.

plus.google.com/100959901782345597097 Adryenn Ashley

Article source: http://www.9news.com/rss/article.aspx?storyid=251075

Continue reading »]]> After getting more requests than I can handle I have decided to personally interview attorneys who have experience helping clients with Yelp, so I can refer victims to them.

If you have a great attorney that has helped you, let me know.  Soon I will post reviews of the ones I think can tackle the issues.

Spread the word.

Thanks!

plus.google.com/100959901782345597097 Adryenn Ashley

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The results of the study, which looked at 712 reviews of 455 doctors in four large urban areas (Chicago, New York, Atlanta and San Francisco) surprised the researchers, based at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and the San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center (SFGH).

The study looked at specifically reviews posted at the sites at Yelp.com and RateMDs.com about doctors in those four cities.

“Physicians are very concerned about having unfiltered, anonymous reviews out there on the Internet,” said Urmimala Sarkar, MD, MPH, an assistant professor at UCSF Division of General Internal Medicine and the Center for Vulnerable Populations at SFGH, who led the study.

Compounding the fear of negative reviews online, said Sarkar, is the fact that the 1996 federal law known as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) prevents doctors from responding substantively to comments posted anonymously from patients. Doing so could be considered a breach of doctor-patient confidentiality and a violation of the HIPAA act.

Doctors are also aware, she said, that information posted online can take on a life of its own, existing permanently for colleagues and future employers to see. Prospective patients may use such information to select their physicians, and reports from the Pew Internet American Life Project have found that a majority of Americans who have access to the Internet seek health information on there.

While the ratings the team reviewed ranged widely in style, sophistication and level of analysis, approximately 63 percent of the reviews were positive and went so far as to recommend the physician.

What Matters to Patients is Also the Experience

There were negative comments about doctors—including one that simply stated “I wouldn’t take my dog to him,” but these were an exception. Moreover, it generally was not the doctors’ own expertise and bedside manner that drove negative ratings, though bedside manner was important to patients.

Instead, it was the whole healthcare experience that stirred patients’ ire. Common complaints included difficulties parking and booking appointments, long waits in waiting rooms and perceived discourteous manners of receptionists and staff.

“These elements are as much a part of the health care experience for patients as the time they spent with the doctor,” said Sarkar, and there is an important lesson for doctors, group practices and medical centers in this.

While any specific statement posted online should be taken with a grain of salt, she said, anonymously posted doctor reviews can nevertheless reveal the unfiltered perspectives of patients that could be as relevant to doctors as they would be to any business discussed in a public forum.

“To the extent that people are revealing specific information that is relevant to you, the reviews are useful,” said Sarkar.

The article, “What Patients Say About Their Doctors Online: A Qualitative Content Analysis” by Andrea López, Alissa Detz, Neda Ratanawongsa, and Urmimala Sarkar appears in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

This work was supported by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and by the National Center for Research Resources, one of the National Institutes of Health.

More information: http://www.springe … 0311k6wr737/

Provided by University of California, San Francisco (news : web)

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plus.google.com/100959901782345597097 Adryenn Ashley

Article source: http://www.physorg.com/news247477136.html

Continue reading »]]> Few things are more heartening than when Yelp admits what we’ve been saying all along: Their review filter sucks!  In short, in their own words, “determining the credibility of reviews is difficult, and we cannot guarantee that our efforts will prove to be effective or adequate.”  If I were the SEC I’d make them rewrite it again! The filter doesn’t work, there is no intelligence behind it, to my knowledge they have no PhD statisticians designing the scoring algorithm…

“While we have designed our technology to filter content that we believe may be offensive, biased, unreliable or otherwise unhelpful, we cannot guarantee that our efforts will be effective or adequate. In addition, some consumers and businesses have expressed concern that our technology inappropriately filters legitimate reviews, which may cause them to stop or reduce their use of our platform or our advertising solutions. If the performance of our filter proves inadequate or ineffective, our reputation and brand may be harmed, users may stop using our products and our business and results of operations could be adversely affected.”

Now there’s the smoking gun!  And my hunch is that the word “IF” is going to have to be removed and replaced with “WHEN” to meet the stringent SEC requirements for full disclosure and perhaps that is why the rumor mills are churning about the cancellation of the IPO.  That is one (of many) great thing about the SEC and disclosure requirements. They can often dig up what us mere consumers have been saying for years.

And why the rush to IPO?  In Feb. 2010, private-equity firm Elevation Partners bought $25 Million in stock in Yelp and allowed six Yelp founders and executives to cash out a portion of their stockholdings to Elevation. Jeremy Stoppelman cashed out $15 million in the deal, so it’s not like he’s only a paper millionaire.  With all the hoo-ha going on behind the scenes and the requirements involved in being a publicly traded company, I’m not holding my breath.

plus.google.com/100959901782345597097 Adryenn Ashley

Continue reading »]]> From a great candid review by Raymond Fong:

Maybe you know and maybe you don’t… but Yelp (a local search and reviews online service) offers paid advertising for businesses called the “Yelp Sponsorship Program“.

To sum it up, according to the page advertising this opportunity, this Yelp Sponsorship program allows you to:

• Put up a slideshow of the images of your business.
• Highlight a user’s review that you like the most (as the business owner)
• Promote your business as a sponsored search result and on your competitors’ business pages. Target potential clients while they are making decisions about where to spend their money on a business like yours

It sounds all fancy spansy right? Sounds like you get even MORE control over your business listing which will help “put your best foot forward” and sneak attack your competitors, stealing all their would be clients.
But Stop the Music, Do These Yelp Advertising Features Actually Accomplish Anything? Or are They Just Fluff Designed to Lure You in so They can Zap You?
Suck Them in & Then ZAP Them!
Before we proceed, I’d like to first state that my experience and knowledge of this Yelp Sponsorship program comes from dealing with them on behalf of one of my clients. This client signed up with Yelp (despite my warnings – apparently Yelp’s salesman are SMOOOTH) and I got to learn all about this program.
Having said that, that’s only ONE experience which doesn’t make me an expert but it certainly makes me more knowledgeable of this Yelp marketing program than those who’s never experienced it.
Furthermore, in case you are not familiar with how Yelp works, anybody can post a business on Yelp, as long as it falls under one of their categories and is a “fit” per their policies. And the rightful owner can claim that Yelp page by jumping through some hoops and voila, you have a FREE listing about your business.

Read More…

plus.google.com/100959901782345597097 Adryenn Ashley

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It’s all over the news http://www.eastbayexpress.com/eastbay/yelp-and-the-business-of-extortion-20/C… and I am glad that people are starting to publicly question the system. You watch their video and tell me why are their comments disabled? It’s because they do not want to hear what the consumers have to say. They do not care. They don’t want to hear the truth of what people are saying. Yelp is not necessary to spread the word thanks to youtube people can still tell the truth.

plus.google.com/100959901782345597097 Adryenn Ashley