The Yelp Review Filter

Many businesses are are dismayed, confused, and quite upset regarding the advancements of the user review filter on Yelp.com. From their perspective the changes that have occurred with the review filter place the business owner at a considerable disadvantage when extremely positive reviews are held in quarantine and extremely negative reviews seem to gain longevity on their live accounts. In addition, some businesses have even noticed that these trends seem to normalize and even reverse when a business account engages in an advertising campaign with Yelp.com.

How the Yelp.com review filter is structured is having a negative effect on the reputation of businesses, the perceived value of their services and products by future customers, and the reputation of Yelp.com by its very own business customers.

How Businesses Are Responding To Yelp

The fact that Yelp does not currently offer a way for businesses to manage their reviews makes for a difficult relationship with the business community.  Some businesses have joined together in class-action lawsuits against Yelp, others refuse to participate by not claiming a profile, while others try to flag negative comments for removal in Yelp’s review filter.

Need Yelp Help?

There is a way to overcome negative reviews on Yelp that does not involve purchasing advertising or constantly requesting the removal of negative reviews.  If you find that your organization needs assistance with managing it’s account on Yelp, then we encourage you to contact us today.

Many of us could learn from what MMA fighter Gordon Shell is doing.  Gordon has a failing heart and is risking his live to help abandoned dogs on the streets of Detroit to avoid being used for dog fighting.  His story is being created and told in a documentary called Dog Fighter by a Michigan Film School here in metro Detroit.

On September 15 at 7:00 p.m., MMA fight fans will pack Meadow Brook Theatre in Rochester Hills, MI to see Gordon’s last fight and to help end dog fighting in Detroit. Tickets for the event are available through TicketMaster online.

Gordon Shell has been a practicing martial artist since his early twenties and just recently began teaching martial arts.  Now 41, Gordon has participated in nearly 80 competitive martial arts fights throughout his career.  Now, he takes on the toughest fight yet, to end animal abuse and dog fighting in Detroit.

Step back for a moment and consider the following:

Key Consideration

1. Threats to your brand and reputation will come from negative content that has been published on sites or networks with high visibility or popularity.

Why This Is Important

• If no one sees a negative comment about you or your organization, its impact to your reputation is very limited.

So Common Sense Says

To start with, monitor the sites and sources that are popular or that have high visibility.  Here are some simple suggestions on where to begin with monitoring your online corporate reputation or online personal reputation:

• Go with Google – Monitoring the comments, reviews, and rankings in the world’s number 1 search engine will cover quite a bit of ground for beginners seeking to monitor their online reputation.  Aspects worth monitoring within Google are:  Search, News, Blogs, Documents, Google +, Images, Video, and more.
• Become friends with Facebook – Again, the world’s most popular social network engages hundreds of millions of people with sharing billions of conversations…perhaps about your company.
• Tweet with Twitter – One of the fastest growing social networks and one of the most popular among fast growing topics that involve popular people and figures.  When monitoring Twitter consider paying close attention to your company name, #yourcompanyname, #yourcompanyservice, #yourcompetitors.
• Love LinkedIn.com – As the world’s largest business social network, LinkedIn.com serves as a direct portal into the corporate conversation about you and your company.  Monitoring questions, answers, and comments about you and your company is extremely important.

Sample Online Reputation Report

If you are not sure about the status of your personal or corporate online reputation, we encourage you to request a Sample Online Reputation Report by our team of specialists at The Online Body Guard.

Depending upon the search engine that is used, comments and reviews that are posted about your business are typically assigned a rating, date, time, and online identity of the poster.

Unfortunately, not all reviews and comments are 100% positive.  Instead, a mix of both positive and negative comments can appear and the reviews are typically based on a true customer experience.  However, sometimes competitors attempt to sabotage your corporate reputation by creating a false online account and posting rumor-based content.

Why Monitoring Your Local Search Engine Account Is Important

• 47% of American companies’ net worth is tied up in intangible assets like brand equity and reputation.

• It is expected that by 2013 4 Million small and medium sized businesses will be using an online reputation platform.

• 25% of search results for the world’s top 20 largest brands are links to user generated content.

Top 5 Comment Management Tips

1. Verify that you are the owner of the account.  (Please see the instructions for this procedure for each search engine as they all have different processes for account ownership and validation).
2. Sign up to receive email alerts of comments and reviews posted to your account.
3. When a comment is made make a determination of its intent and react accordingly with a response.  Negative comments require quite a different response that positive comments.
4. If the commentary or review is negative, ensure that your request for removal to the search engine includes detailed information regarding WHY the comment should be removed according to its online policy.
5. Repeat.  Quite often comment removal may take several attempts for success.

Related Blog Posts

Online Reputation Warning Signs

Tips for Managing an Online Reputation Crisis

Sample Online Reputation Report

If you are not sure about the status of your personal or corporate online reputation, we encourage you to request a Sample Online Reputation Report by our team of specialists at The Online Body Guard.

The sheer speed with which information gets shared and communicated on a global scale can act as a devastating event in the midst of the following scenarios:

• Corporate and personal lawsuits
• Corporate and personal scandals
• Product defects
• Product recalls
• Poor manufacturing standards
• Corporate Environmental violations
• Corporate and personal embezzlement
• Corporate and personal fraud

If you, or your business, find itself involved in one of the above events, consider reviewing the following information for immediate assistance:

Online Reputation Warning Signs

5 Tips for Managing an Online Reputation Crisis

If you are not sure about the status of your personal or corporate online reputation, we encourage you to request a Sample Online Reputation Report by our team of specialists at The Online Body Guard.

Why Monitor The Competition?

Knowing the online strategies and activities of a competitor can be an extremely valuable form of corporate intelligence.  The data collected from online competitor monitoring allows an organization to make critical decisions regarding the company online marketing campaign, research and development, and much more.

5 Reasons to Monitor the Online Competition

1. Is my patent, or other commercial rights, being violated?
2. Are my competitors stealing my web content and ideas?
3. Is the voice of the competition being heard by my target market and customers?
4. Are my competitors “planting” comments about my company, regardless of accuracy, in message boards, forums, and social networks?
5. Is the competition’s marketing working better than mine?

About The Online Body Guard™

By offering customizable features that both monitor and manage specific topics and areas such as your company Brand, Personnel, Competitors, Products, Services, Major Social Networks, Major Search Engines, Blogs, Forums, and much more; The Online Body Guard™ is becoming the affordable choice for corporations and individuals seeking a quality online reputation monitoring service.

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