Is Yelp Helping or Hurting You?

If you responded to this question with a confused look and the response “What is Yelp?” then you’ve got a lot of catching up to do.  Forces have been at work that you didn’t even know about, and that can be a scary thing.

Yelp is an online review site for restaurants, bars, retail stores, and spas.  Users post their reviews of these businesses, and many others read reviews to help them decide where to eat when dining out.  Which means that Yelp could be helping or hurting you right now, depending on the nature of the reviews posted about your restaurant.

The problem is, your competition can also post a review about you that is probably less than accurate, hurting your chances of converting those increasingly scarce customers into visitors to your restaurant.

It’s a dog eat dog cyberworld out there and Yelp has become a key battleground for the hearts and minds of stingy customers.

Yelp takes advantage of this situation by allowing restaurants to pay to have bad reviews suppressed and good reviews highlighted.  These “sponsorships” start at $150 per month and comprise Yelp’s primary source of revenue.

Some restaurateurs love Yelp.  Their clientele use the site on a regular business and the favorable listings and review postings given to sponsors means a noticeable increase in business that more than justifies the cost per month.

Others view the monthly payment as necessary to prevent bad reviews from hurting business.

Regardless, less than 1% of the businesses reviewed on Yelp have become site sponsors, which is probably more a function of restaurateur ignorance than an unwillingness to pay for a sponsorship.

No matter what, anonymous, user-generated online reviews are the trend of the future, and the day is not far off when most potential patrons of your restaurant will learn about you through Yelp or a similar site on the internet.

It’s therefore up to you to at least know what is being said about your business online, and figure out how your customers are hearing about you.

Conduct a survey of customers to gauge how many came to you as a result of an online review site like Yelp.   Track reviews on the site and ask loyal patrons to post reviews.  You could even offer a free appetizer or other incentive for posting a review.

And if you find that a large portion of your clientele is using Yelp to find and learn about your restaurant, perhaps a sponsorship is the right route to take.

The younger and more urban the customer base, the more likely the need for you to reach customers through new media like Yelp.

Either way, take the time to learn where your customers are coming from and what people are saying about you on Yelp.  Knowledge is power, and you can’t afford to not know what’s being said about your business out in cyberspace.