Hraba Hospitality Consulting

Another Class Action Lawsuit for Yelp!

Enjoy the TechCrunch article… and always, always, always enjoy the commentary.  I find it interesting if not hilarious.  If it isn’t hilarious enough for you, check out the comment section of this blog post, where it basically proves Facebook users are clueless (or 4chan had a blast acting like a mischievous army, once again).

Yelp seems to be taking this situation seriously though; umm….enough to post a Craigslist ad for legal counsel.  I would imagine there are better ways to hire lawyers than CL, but hey, just says a lot about the management that got them into this mess.

But these cries of extortion… once again… are more about bad management than out and out unethical behaviour.  There is no way these suits will be able to prove the “WE WILL DELETE A REVIEW FOR YOU” concept, because I don’t think it has ever happened; if it has, I doubt anyone has gotten a record of it as fact.  Someone would have proof by now… a recorded call, etc.  Admittedly, these guys at Yelp are from Paypal, and they know not to be sending privy or damaging info across email, etc…. but I still doubt something like that is going on.  It’s more likely confusion on the level of businesses not getting what is happening with the algorithm, as well as the dubious (but not out and out unethical) “move the best review to the top” program, that seems to confuse a lot of people.  This is more about business owner’s lack of understanding about social media, and Yelp’s apparent incapacity to clarify just how their algorithm works.

Using the algorithm as an excuse is not a wise move – blaming the foundation of their business opens them up to scrutiny.  By blaming the process of your sorting model, there will be more curiosity as to how it works.  Until people can trust that algorithm without question, their entire model will be extremely unstable.  Regardless of proprietary, privileged information, it jeopardizes their ability to be viable and dealt with as ethical business people.  Of course, the bungled Google deal and whatever really happened there (it’s all speculation) might offer a small window into their world.  Theories abound that Yelp was lying to Google, leaking information, and fabricating higher offers from unnamed suitors.  Yelp walking on this deal doesn’t make as much sense as Google calling their bluff, but logic doesn’t always figure into business dealings.  All in all… Google knows how to negotiate, and they were “rattled” by Yelp’s lack of transparency…. seemingly a theme for Yelp.

All they need to do is be open about their algorithm, and it will bolster and gel their business model.  I am sure there would be growing pains with being that open, but it would pave the way to have a stronger, vetted business that actually has trust from other people.  Until then, their algorithm nonsense will be the blood in the water that keeps the sharks (lawyers & lawsuits) coming back…

As the solution to their issues seem obvious, it starts to beg the question whether Yelp really has something to hide.  Without being conspiratorial, it isn’t that much of a logical leap that they are concerned about *something* – whether there are significant flaws in the algorithm, or they have work arounds that allow you to disregard specific aspects of it.  Frankly I don’t like conspiracy theories; people are typically not intelligent enough to orchestrate massive lies involving endless people that agree to keep secrets without being morally challenged.  Our government can’t, big businesses can’t…. why should a web 2.0 startup be able to get this far?  If moralistic heart strings being tugged isn’t enough, money talks… and one of the employees would have blown the whistle for their future book deal and fame, at this point.

However, if they ever get caught jockeying reviews under the guise of their algorithmic mistakes, Yelp will be *decimated*…. but I can’t imagine that ever happening.  What might happen is that serious flaws in the algorithm get noted, and short term it will seriously hurt them.  Depending on how they handle this fictional problem, it won’t likely be a Yelp killer.  However, watching Toyota deal with public fallout, it never ceases to amaze me how business’ often choose to ignore history and good sense.  What’s more, Yelp is a leader in flipping the marketing model and giving consumers a voice, taking a business’ ability to control damage with PR and spin.  Yelp is acting exactly like the companies that they are helping expose… you can’t be secretive, you can’t market your mistakes away…. if any business should understand this, it’s Yelp.  If you aren’t ethical, or don’t operate with the best of intentions… the public has ways of exposing that.  It’s humorous, and possibly ironic, that Yelp is caught in a trap of their own making.

I love seeing unethical people getting brought down, but I just don’t see this as mitigated behavior so much as foolish bungling, something I touched on before in this article.

People who don’t understand what Yelp is offering endlessly cry about the review site’s shifty ways… but Yelp’s program for advertising isn’t that nebulous.  The $300, $500, $1000 plans get you “impressions”…. those lightly highlighted/colored ads at the top of searches on yelp.  You also get a “slideshow” style picture gallery which is pretty meaningless, and you get to pick your favorite review to automatically appear at the top.  It says, “this is the company’s favorite review” and it’s fairly obvious when people are sponsors.  Most of the worthwhile aspects of managing the business owners accounts on yelp have nothing to do with their advertising options, by the way.  It is a valuable tool and can help you listen, learn and grow…. but you don’t need to pay yelp for any real reason.  For most businesses I doubt it makes sense at all; I don’t get it for a flower shop or bakery, etc…. there is no return on investment, so those constant calls they must be getting are annoying, to be sure.  But I still don’t think there is some devious plot going on…. I have spoken to at least 5 different account managers in different markets who try to get me to advertise, and none have pulled any unethical behavior beyond being ENDLESSLY annoying.

I still prefer google adwords, but if you are already doing those it might not be a bad idea, depending on your business.  Think about it from a hotel’s perspective – If I choose to pay $1000 a month from our marketing budget (which has moved online from print media), that means I get something like 4800 impressions (aka a banner ad that a consumer may or may not see due to “banner blindness”… I mean, I don’t see those ads at all, frankly).  If our average daily rate is $500, that means I literally have to pluck one person for two nights out of the 4800 impressions to cover the cost of advertising with yelp.  It actually is sort of a slam dunk, in that sense.

I just can’t convince old school marketers who are scared of losing the message, and not controlling the brand, due to sites like this.  What’s more, Yelp is only successful in SF Bay and a couple other markets.. barely.  Boston, LA, Chicago, NY seem to be okay… but even social media savvy Portland and Seattle aren’t that strong a market at all.

Look at open table reviews vs. yelp reviews in other markets…. opentable reviews which are verified and confirmed from a reservation are much more common than yelp reviews outside of the SF market.  One of our fine dining restaurants in the Portland area has 2 reviews on yelp, and over 200 on open table.  That speaks volumes.

But in the end…. it’s all bad press, and it douses their equity every time this happens.  I can’t help but wonder why they allow this to continue unabated?

Social media is supposed to be about transparency and Yelp is failing at that…. massively.  Everyone thinks Yelp is some immutable, immovable behemoth, but people moved from Myspace to Facebook in less than a couple months.  Youtube is less than 5 years old, and Facebook is less than 3 1/2 years old..  Yelp needs to recognize that their high horse isn’t that high.  The basic upshot is that this is all very young.  I think it’s interesting tho… all of it… which is why I am rambling here to all of you.  This will all be sorted out within a couple years, I am sure.

Do you guys think this is more about confusion from the companies themselves, or do you really think yelp is committing some expertly maintained conspiracy?  What are your thoughts on the future of online reviewing?

I just found this.  1) Don’t know if it’s useful, but it’s interesting, 2) I am sure you guys can leverage this in some way, 3) I don’t know if this is supposed to be visible or not… so take advantage now.

This isn’t just about keywords by market which is endlessly fascinating, but it also says a lot about their markets…. the sheer volume of terms in SF compared to, say, Portland is pretty intriguing.

http://www.yelp.com/topsearches?page=01

that’s for SF.

You can also search other cities

http://www.yelp.com/topsearches/nyc?page=01

http://www.yelp.com/topsearches/la?page=01

http://www.yelp.com/topsearches/chicago?page=01

http://www.yelp.com/topsearches/sacramento?page=01

http://www.yelp.com/topsearches/portland?page=01

750+ pages of terms for SF, 521 for LA, 443 for Chicago, only 59 for Sacramento, 63 for Portland, etc.  Enter your city and see if it is at all worthwhile or interesting for you.

Cheers… just thought I would share.

Also….

I apologize for posting the below (I had published the keywords, but didn’t feel comfortable with them, now I just list the #), as it is the nefarious naughty words of net searches… but I doubt this will be up for long, due to searches like this tarnishing yelp’s equity with user base searches like #35, #47, and #60 among other less illegal or salacious terms on the SF search term board (like #99).  Ouch, yelp.  Ouch.  If these pages are removed, I will post the terms.  Frankly, they are sort of disturbing. =/  Can any SEO people suggest what these are?  I cannot believe they are organic searches?

The rest that is cut off (hey I am a hotel guy, not a HTML guy) says “($42/month), would you?”  You can take the survey yourself right here: TripAdvisor Survey for Owners.

I will let the pic speak for itself.  I know it’s just a survey, but I assume some people might have a concern in regards to this?  How about: mom and pops, small innkeepers, non branded or flagged properties that don’t have a mega-marketing budget to leverage every site, and I could go on.  I know it’s only $500, but it adds up…. and if they were to really go through with this I assume it would be irrevocably damaging to their long term credibility.  Even Yelp has tiptoed around ethics issues with business owners, review manipulation, etc – but haven’t done something this obvious.  Of course, the question is:  In their quest to monetize, will TripAdvisor risk their credibility to do so?

Any thoughts?  Is it that big a deal?  Would it create an unfair gap between “haves” and “have nots”, or is TripAdvisor supplying link and phone info moot, because guests will call the hotel directly anyway?

Once again, I got carried away with a response to a blog post, and decided to expound on it.  I am sure this counts as real business right?

Newsweek’s Budget Travel has a great article about TripAdvisor trying to deal with the long coming revelation that many of their users and reviews are not legitimate.  This is, frankly, a huge blow to the site, and should pose a happy problem in it’s early adolescence as they deal with all the changes that come along with growing into adulthood.  Frankly, I am thrilled that this may provoke User Generated Content sites to seek the same verification model other sites have.

At any rate, this is vital to all of us, and it recalls some of my previous post (which I seem to mention once or twice):

You know I am skeptical of social media, whether speaking of Facebook’s lack of meaningful interaction, or Flickr’s nebulous TOS.  In general, I have had major concerns since my yelp research project, and resulting thoughts on ethics in social media. I had even mentioned in January that Yelp should consider verification processes.

One scotch fueled evening my jocular side protruded a wee bit and I became a prankster. To be honest it wasn’t to learn the lesson I did, rather just good fun.  I speak of the Ryan Air Twitter spoof of mine, which got considerable attention in traditional media (namely because Ryan Air claimed @ryanaironline was their account).  It  helped me realize that there is a grave concern for brands and trademarks, and both the businesses & social media sites should have a vested interest in a verification process of brands.  There is a serious risk of hijacking and damaging people and businesses, with inauthentic people (or dim ones not realizing pranks and social media can go viral) damaging a brands reputation.

Social Media is young. FB beat out myspace because it is better at replicating and verifying the real world (although it can’t actually do anything more meaningful than provide a wonderful marketing data gathering opportunity for FB, coupled with a nice phonebook)… but it was verifying that the person was the *reality* based person, which quickly attracted people to it. If you aren’t relevant to any networks, or aren’t genuine… you quickly become invisible.

As user generated review sites follow a similar path, these things will stabilize. It is very young, and still in the myspace period of fake profiles and people… but as twitter adds verification services & FB starts considering verification due to trademark infringement issues with it’s new URL program: , it will be obvious for User Generated Content Sites to authenticate, across the board. I am not sure if open ID and attaching accounts to mobile phones is the simplest way, but if something doesn’t happen quick the sites will implode through sacrificing the only thing that makes their business model feasible.  I am sure Tripadvisor has seen the start of accounts closing due to the breach in ethics.

We will wait until services like Yelp and TripAdvisor grow into the awareness of what they have created.  People sardonically jest “the internet is serious business” when it comes to this sort of stuff.  But it is.  It isn’t just 2.0.  It’s a massively powerful tool that completely reorients the consumer model, putting control into the hands of the people, and out of marketing and PR companies, possibly for the first time in capitalism’s history. The message can no longer be managed, and PR doesn’t work the same way anymore. You are only as strong as the advocates and endorsers that believe in your brand. Ethics is paramount.

The only way for these sites to continue their validity is by echoing the sentiment of their own taglines: Tripadvisor’s “get the truth… and go”, or Yelp’s “real reviews, real people”.  If they commit to intelligently policing their own site by being completely transparent, authentic, accountable, and earnest, they should be able to emerge better than before.. They might need to take a huge dip in registered users, as well as delete a lot of existing content. This open and honest method of dealing with this situation will undoubtedly sacrifice trust in the short term, but it is the only way for a social media site to maintain the trust that they leverage for business.

It will hurt… but this is an opportunity for them to re-organize into a leaner and more valid site than ever before. Most people saw this coming. Let’s hope it isn’t something they try to spin away or ignore… instead of doing what is right and being honest, while doing everything they can to curb the problem.

I admit concern about the idea of having to hire non-revenue generating staff to handle the massive clean up project, and the fact the money simply might not be there to handle it.  However, it is obvious they are quickly responding, like April Robb from Tripadvisor commenting to Christopher Elliott. I do like the warnings they put on some hotels, but it could be markedly arbitrary?

We’ll have to see.

Not sure what age social media is at right now, but it is certainly hitting a painful growth spurt.

The yelp post garnered 5 times as many views as anything I have ever posted, and stimulated a lot of interesting conversation on multiple outlets.  This is a follow up, clarifying a lot of stuff… might be too long, but I will let it stand.  Thanks for the dialogue, comments, emails, etc.  Be Well!

I have apologized for long posts before.. but this is ridiculous.  Actually.. if you need to blame anyone for length, chat with the thoughtful Jeff at http://www.IwantMoreFood.com.  He asked some great questions.. I was replying in an email and then it just went forever.

–

I want to go on record saying I am an ardent yelper, and *love* *love* *love* it. Beyond the frustration of losing reviews with little warning, it is a fantastic food blog for me. With my memory, I need all the help I can get. However we have seen so much in this web world fail in the blink of an eye, and it causes concern to many people with how Yelp has responded to the media, user and business owner accusations, etc.  However, it doesn’t detract from my passion for the site.  I generate content like a madman. My canned response is always – I am excited to share this with people for years to come. I can’t wait until my kids comprehend it, and I can share the first meal I ever had with their mother by sending them a link and reading it while we tell the story. It is sort of a magical place to have fun, interact with people, build *real* local community, etc.

But I am in for the long haul, and I have seen so many sites that had a foothold get blown away by newer sites that had fixed the problems that existed in the failed site. Then there was that damned bubble.  Remember webvan? Kosmo? There is another one coming, and it is waiting in the halls.  Even the Richter Scales know that with ver 1.1 (by the way I am sure you have seen it, but that is the funniest thing you will see today, sung to Billy Joel’s “We didn’t start the fire”)

When you ignore those inherent flaws, you become obsolete and people quickly move from you to the “next big thing”. In fact, I think what has happened to Myspace vs. Facebook is incredible.  MySpace lacked accountability, verifiability, and transparency…. Which is why Facebook took off. They improved on MySpace’s flaws, and people bailed on myspace immediately. I am not suggesting that will happen to yelp, but trust is what social media is all about… and if it wavers for too long people give up. I have seen this concern constantly on the yelp boards… frustrated, confused people not getting answers. I am also not saying Myspace is dead, but you can draw your own conclusions. I don’t know anyone that even talks about it anymore. What’s more, when Facebook started challenging users with subversive marketing ideas like Beacon, without full transparency it backfired big. In fact, with their latest update I personally see long term trouble for brands (see this post: http://www.hrabaconsulting.com/blog/2009/04/09/facebook-all-atwitter/) and their ability to create commerce within the site. But that is neither here nor there.

The point is… I think yelp will be fine. They sure as hell don’t need some random hospitality blogger’s opinion about it…. But I am sure they have a foothold enough to carry them on. The question about whether it makes money, integrity or not, is a important. It’s still not profitable, and they have to figure out how to make it so. I know of hotels jumping off the advertising bandwagon on yelp, as well as business owners and users frustrated with a lack of explanation, clouded in this secret algorithm. Integrity is key, but for now the shoulder-shrugging reality may be that making money is more important. However, the money won’t be there in the future if no one trusts them. Integrity does *not* make money, but sacrificing or compromising integrity will lose money fairly quickly. If the company doesn’t focus on the following specific issue, it will be in long term trouble:

****It isn’t whether their business practices are unethical or shifty – it’s that they appear that way to so many people****

They aren’t shifty. They are just some young people trying to build a useful site. That’s the facts. No conspiracies, no conscious removing of reviews, no favouring of sponsors……

But the *PERCEPTION* is that there is something wrong, and until they come out and are fully accountable for this *PERCEPTION*, whether true or not, they will be digging themselves a deeper whole. They need to own these issues, and start to come to terms with them.

As users and businesses, instead or rolling over and allowing them to damage their brand by ignoring this stuff, we need to hold them to task. I got worried posting that last post simple because yelp doesn’t like dissention. They have an interesting philosophy, and it does seem they prefer a head in the sand mentality of celebrating their cult-like followers, rather than ever really engaging the people that have concerns or questions. In fact, even prior to my post I had been somewhat unwelcome in that I am constantly critical of these business issues. The members of yelp often like to make fun of it, not realizing that sometimes…. Yes…. “the internet *is* serious business”, mostly because I forget the difference between being inside the community, and having an industry bird’s eye view.  That is a balance I need to work on for the benefit of people that tire of my biz, or vacuous, commentary. They want people to mindlessly endorse them, as if they were followers of a religion. I never was too good at that, and yes my teachers got upset with all my questions too.

The point is…. Some bloggers and so-called “experts” target yelp because they *really* dislike it. I ask questions and bring up points because *I love it*, enough to forsake that “love it or leave it mentality” and try to help identify problems so we can work on solutions. I got worried about posting that stuff…. but it is all real, it is all pretty damning of that algorithm, and it doesn’t seem like something they want to deal with.

However… they are the *best* out there by far. It isn’t even a question. That is why so many people are trying to take them down, target them, etc. It also isn’t their fault that business owners with absolutely no idea what “social media” is, lash out, and make baseless accusations about their business practices. The idea that a social media review site would have some secretive, unethical behavior is asinine, conspiratorial, and not very helpful. However, it is a very tenuous and precarious position backing and protecting an algorithm that is obviously, in many eyes, flawed. In fact, it’s dangerous. Anyone that uses the site knows the search algorithm is, for all intensive purposes, worthless. Identifying the problem is a first step… and I really dislike naysayers and dour types that bring up problems with no solutions, but I have little that I could help with, really.

Crowdsourcing? Getting a large group of users to commit to auditing reviews from newer users, etc? They used to have moderation, maybe it’s time to bring it back in some form. Maybe an independent expert or consulting group to vet the algorithm’s stability or functionality? This is where I sort of lose it… I am not nearly as qualified as some of the incredibly smart people at yelp to offer advice. Most social media sites like twitter or facebook have multiple blogs. I am not so interested in the cult of elite on the CEO blog as much as I am with technological advancements, internal ethical dialogue, etc. When there is a glitch on twitter, twhirl, facebook api, etc….. you know about it. There is constant communication that is open, honest, accountable and humble. I would love to see this with yelp… letting the programmers inform us of problems, advancements, etc. Of course, I want to help, but don’t know where to begin.

As for yelp… I don’t even know if this is something they are working on, or if they are too focused on marketing and stabilizing a business model that, for all intensive purposes, might not work. Ad-model is failing for a lot of social media, but yelp has a grounded network based in the real world… which totally alters that model. If that is their main focus right now, they seem to be working day to day instead of having a business model that is long term and thought out.  It’s possible I don’t have a clue, but lately it does seem they fly by the seat of their pants.

As for Stoppelman, the company just hired PR to deal with damaging press, but would still go onto blogs. It looked very bad and defensive. I do think they have recently had a dialogue about how they interact with people, especially critics, online as well as how they respond. In the past, when someone outside the “yelp” community remarked, yelp (read “he”) snapped back, often at the messenger, and not the message. I made a joke about them not keeping up on their Sophocles.

It doesn’t maintain high regard or put yelp in favour of the travel/hospitality, food, or social media ethics sphere.  I don’t even know if it is important…. I think what yelp should continue to do is precisely what they did with my previous post – ignore it. If the issue that is brought up is so compelling, simply respond on the yelp blog. This seemed the course set by the PR people for the East Bay Express article (or at least a great decision by Mr. Stoppelman) and it worked fairly well (other than attacking the reporter, instead of the accusations).

In the end, it will be fine… but it will take the community to police their lack of openness and forthrightness in regards to their business practices. People who really love the site should be able to recognize it’s merits, ponder it’s flaws… have an open discussion about it…. And work together in improving it. As of now, that isn’t happening and that is frustrating to a lot of people.

Pardon this huge ramble.  I have had so many private email messages.. this has sparked controversary, discussion, interest…. and hopefully attempted to create an open dialogue about what is going on.  In fact, this has attritubted to some of the rudest email I have ever gotten, because people are passionate about this.  All I wanted was proper discussion.  I am big on data, so before making some random claim, I knew I needed to back it up.  Now that the dialogue has started, I am incredibly interested in hearing more of what ALL of you say.  I will end with this……

It’s funny that Unilever’s CEO was recently chiding businesses for not realizing that their brand is not their own, and includes Ad Ages new rules of marketing.  It is for all brands, not specifically online…. but I think it is wise for anybody in this new media world.  I think it says a lot.

1. Listening to consumers is more important than talking at them. As Mr. Clift said, “We may be ahead of our competitors, but we’re most definitely behind consumers.” The consumer is not a moron, she’s the person defining your brand.
2. You can’t hide the corporation behind the brand anymore — or even fully separate the two. Even this editor’s creaking computer only took 0.13 seconds to show that Philip Morris is owned by Altria Group. Welcome to radical transparency, where bad corporate behavior will damage your brands, and vice versa.
3. PR is a primary concern for every CMO and brand manager. If “marketing” and “PR” are not the same department, tear down the wall. Spend time deciding whether PR is underleveraged in your organization.
4. Cause marketing isn’t about philanthropy, it’s about “enlightened self-interest,” as Mr. Clift puts it. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t count. Don’t be ashamed of your profit motive, because great branding and doing good are increasingly one and the same.
5. Social media is not a strategy. You need to understand it, and you’ll need to deploy it as a tactic. But remember that the social graph just makes it even more important that you have a good product. Put another way: The volume and quality of your earned media will be directly proportional to the impact and quality of your product and ideas.

–NB: recent removed reviews seem to have been flagged by the community, a bunch were taken down at once, and they explained it was somewhat of a “chain” review of a 7-11.  I was shown the text, but not how many reviews.  I am totally fine with them taking them down.

NB: As soon as Yelp sees this, they will be working on fixing these specific errors, which is fine.  The point is that these exist… endlessly… throughout the site, and these were just the obvious ones I catalogued in a few hours.

–

I was so pleased to see a 2 star review disappear from one of my client’s pages today… one that sponsors yelp.  I doubt that means anything, because the below problem looks as if it follows zero rhyme or reason.  This looks like that algorithm really does have a secret aspect about it…. that it is irrevocably flawed.

So… this isn’t about yelp being unethical.  This isn’t about deliberate unethical behaviour.  All Jeremy Stoppleman seems to do is look for blogs, waiting to defensively react against criticism… usually ending with the incredibly vapid “it’s the algorithm and it’s secret” argument.  But really, that’s harmless.

However, that argument might not hold water anymore guys.  Below is an afternoon of research, and it is hardly complete.  This could go on forever.  Hopefully… you will recognize that this is enough proof that the integrity of yelp, and it’s functionality, is endlessly flawed.  This is about a faulty algorithm, no more no less.  The below links are all too self explanatory…. pointing out profiles with reviews that are suppressed from business pages.  Whether or not it is about “maintaining the integrity of yelp” as they so often suggest is moot….

These are real people, and real reviews.  In the below documentation, I have often countered the suppressed review of a certain business by highlighting a reviewer that has a nearly similar profile that actually *has* a review posted.  What that means is that many of the profiles that have suppressed reviews are no different from reviews that are posted on the site (sometimes no avatar/pic, sometimes very few reviews, sometimes long periods between reviews)

Many of the arguments against the below research will be:

1) that they don’t have a picture…. but many of the posted reviews do not have a pic as well.  You have to start out with a fresh profile at some point.  If they aren’t giving a voice to people, why would anyone finish updating a profile anyway.

2) Yelp is protecting against “one hit wonders”…. but that won’t stand up, in that many of those people have completed profiles with many reviews that are totally legitimate.  What’s more, some businesses pages have multiple one hit wonders, just to have one of those suppressed?

I also find it interesting that, after a person voices concern on a talk thread…. the reviews magically appear.  I am not suggesting that yelp is reviewing talk threads and acting accordingly when people bring this issue up, but look for yourself…. seems a lot of the voiced reviewers’ concerns have been placated since the beginning of those threads.  I guess it is tantamount to yelp having the mistake brought to it’s attention, and fixing that error.  Admitting that the algorithm is flawed is one thing… but having to constantly correct and second guess, or act as oversite, sort of lessens any integrity or trust I had in the site.  If I have to sit and think about whether it is honest, or whether it can be trusted… well isn’t that a problem?  Many yelpers I have spoken with don’t think so.  You decide.

I have also supplied links to other talk threads where people are simply confused about flagged reviews, or why their review was taken down or isn’t showing.  I added some confused businesses to boot.

If this is your algorithm yelp, you have built your business on one of the most flawed I have seen.  Just my two cents.  If real reviews by real people is what this is all about, yelp has some serious explaining to do about the incredible flaw in their model.  I don’t think this is fixable, and I don’t think they can defend it.

Frankly, I love yelp.  I hope they can.  I think they may want to start.  I knew this wasn’t out and out unethical behaviour… it was just a deeply flawed model.

If you have any odd situations like this…. a review on your profile not existing on a business page, or confusion of the lack of transparency or communication on yelp’s part… let it be heard.

I may be way, way off on this.  But the below is interesting to me.  I hope it is for you as well.  While we wait for transparency, communication, openness, earnestness, and any ounce of interest in clearing up the confusion… Jeremy will pop into any conversation acting defensive and contradictory.  Instead of being defensive and having to always manage bad press… why not just fix it?

Funny that yelp helped destroy the original marketing model so you can no longer damage control or control any “message”…. which is precisely what yelp is retroactively doing when things like this come up.

I have said it before… you need to be an ethical business that consumers identify with, and have an ethos that draws people to “opt-in” to your offering… and not trick people into thinking you are something you are not.  If you aren’t ethical, or you aren’t run well… people will find out.

It’s possible that yelp is both.

Below was sent to “elite” (read “drunken”) members of yelp. This is INCREDIBLY exciting. This will legitimize yelp, and I have to say this is the most important development in the last couple months in social media. This is huge, exciting, and I am very happy to explore this with my hotels. What a PHENOMENAL tool.

———–from yelp————

As a member of the Elite Squad, I wanted you to be among the first to know about a new feature that is rolling out in about a week or so. It’s called Business Owner Comments, and as the name suggests, it will allow a business owner to write a public Comment after any given review. Comments will be the latest addition to the free Business Owner’s Account that any business owner can sign up for, and that lets them add Photos, post Special Offers and create an ‘About This Business’ section (for more info, read up *here*). As a reviewer, you’ll be emailed each time you receive a new Comment, just like when you get a Compliment.

The goal is for all Comments to be pleasant and useful. For example, if you wrote a glowing 5-star review some months ago about your favorite pub, in which you mention drinking Harp because they didn’t carry Guinness… both you and other readers would probably be happy to see a new Comment saying, “Just got our Guinness tap last week. Hope to see you soon!” Here are a couple other example Comments.

Comments will NOT be a forum for a business owner to disparage a reviewer. As you’ve probably seen with Private Messages, most business owners are actually appreciative of honest and constructive opinions, and realize that being rude to customers is — both on and off Yelp — bad for business. But for those few ill-mannered folks out there, we have come up with some fairly strict Comment Guidelines — and our customer service team will remove violating posts.

My blog posts run aggressively long at times.  So… I gave the instructions and “how-to” in the last post, but all you skeptics might want a “WHY” section to refer to…. and we shall call this the “meat” of the discussion.  As I have made it late to lunch due to this post, it will not only entice me to end it, but will provide the bulk of the point of this discussion.

The reason this is important for business:

The more places we are active online, and the more places we exist online, helps us significantly. The more places we are talked about or our media is represented, the more relevant our brand and hotel is online, and the higher we will be ranked in search engines.

Search engines are changing and will be looking for content (media, graphics, organic conversation) and normal “keyword indexing” will be at the back of the bus. So as these changes start happening, we need to increase our online footprint as much as possible to grab as much “land” online before our competitors do. It is like the Oklahoma Sooners…those first to arrive ended up with the most land. Land in this case is content… personal photos on personal accounts (FB, flickr, shutterfly, etc) that casually mention work, or personal twitter accounts that engage people in conversation about your brand, or professional accounts for work. If guests, meeting planners, restaurant clients all post photos on their personal Flickr accounts, or youtube videos of their stays, or review (good or bad) on sites…. it benefits us greatly. The more content we have online, the more relevant we become. I know it seems like a lot of content, often empty or meaningless, but the more content the wider our footprint will be.

So get to it! =) Don’t hesitate to shout or scream or bemusedly confusedly ask questions. I am happy to talk about it, and today something clicked in on how important it is for EVERYONE to be talking about the brand or hotel, not just the social media guy. One smart person is good to get the ball rolling, but it takes the help of a whole network to get it up that hill.

Go.. learn… experiment.. have fun.  The online world has forever impacted our business, and it promises to get even weirder.  When these search engines start engaging content and media more than before…. successfull SEO will be a minour part of the overall picture.  So go create an account or two!

Some relevant articles to this discussion?

Brands in searching saving the internet from being the “cesspool” it is:
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/10/08/this-cesspool-we-call-the-internet

This is a link to my blog, but it has some great “future of SEO” articles:
http://www.hrabaconsulting.com/blog/2009/01/23/keywords-will-step-to-the-back-of-the-search-engine-line-or-how-consumers-will-find-hotels-in-the-future/

Seriously…. panic!  Panic now!

Okay calm down and chill out.  It really doesn’t help.  Actually my mantra is quite lazily swiped from Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:  “DON’T PANIC”.  I can’t tell you how often that phrase helped during bomb threats, broken water mains, or total service meltdowns in opening periods…..

*But* I have your attention.  It’s devious to be sure, but you’re here and you might like this.

As you are calming down, I will help raise your eyebrow a bit, and possibly the bar.  This isn’t the limbo… so we will hopefully bring it up so that everyone can pass through! No, it is not the kind of bar you wished it to be.  You will need to find that later in the day.

We hotel social media people are all over it!  The internet that is.  We are in a lot of places online.  Frankly we are everywhere and it wears us out.  Following yellow page sites like citysearch and yellobot, following customer generated reviews on multiple hotel outlet pages with sites like TripAdvisor, Zagat, or Yelp.  We have multiple Twitter accounts, facebook pages, blogs, myspace, and more.  We have RSS feeds creating feedback loops of brand info!

Simply…. we are doing our job for the company, as rapidly as that is being defined.

But more and more I notice something.  Most corporate offices are totally clueless.  They are years away from this.  Many are catching on, starting to get it, almost there.  Even the corporate offices with visionary ownership – far ahead of the game – fall a bit short in that they understand that social media is important, vital, and very much the “here and now” of grassroots word of mouth, but aren’t completely utilizing the tools yet.  At times it feel as if there is a self satisfaction in having that “one online guy” managing things, so they can tell their other industry pals, “We’re on it.  We are relevant, fresh, and in the know!”

Sipping of Arnold Palmer’s then reverbrates in the lounge air with a smug sense of management being hip (Actually, that is usually me with the Arnold Palmer). I am fairly lucky this isn’t my case and it is hyperbole to be sure, but you catch my drift.  The point is that it’s so new a “tool” (for lack of a better term) there is a strong likelihood there will be communication problems at the beginning, the learning curve will be great, and making people aware of it will be very difficult.

If you believe in the brand you work for, it is your cross to bear.

The difficulty is bridging that gap, and helping people grasp it’s importance.  What is happening with social media, search indexing, and brand positioning is going to alter *everything* in the next couple years for the internet.  Quick article *here* However it so new I am not sure people are fully grasping this “thing”, beyond the hip and organized ones that are currently shuffling their social media guy into a room and praying that that person does a good job (so they no longer have to worry about the “annoying reviewers”)….

It isn’t the “be all and end all”, it isn’t a religion… but it is vitally important, much bigger than one person, and hopefully this ramble will help you will see why.

Ownership, management, and most employees are lost on it, understandably so.  Social Media is an overwhelming place of daunting content and endless snide reviews….  but we “SMO” were put here to build a base for the brand’s social media presence, and that is much more than just hiring someone to do the job and ignoring them.  It is allowing the SMO to interact with employees and help reinforce what social media is and does.  This is a position that will not only be a property level position at some point, but it will be a respected manager training and helping other staff to get on board and help the hotel.  Ehhh… possibly (Feynman said fence sitting is an art)

Most hotels with social media campaigns do not alert guests to it, often forgetting to mention it if it comes up. Often it is because employees don’t know about it, or sometimes because it just aggravates them.  You have all heard of it, probably been inundated by it and confused by it, which is often times why people just ignore it. But it is vital we talk about the lack of connection between the campaign and employees on property level, and why there needs to be more interaction than “yeah we have a guy doing it”.

How do you start this interaction?  My advice is to find any and every employee property level that “gets” social media, is into it, and might have fun with it.  In fact, many of your SMO’s already see some employees online while performing their job tasks… you know those employees online a bit more often than they might need to be?  That is where you start…. it’s that simple!

People are concerned about their employees talking about them online, but that concern should be obsolete!  You shouldn’t worry about it… THEY ALREADY ARE TALKING ABOUT YOU!  You couldn’t stop them if you wanted to, so it is wise to reinforce that your brand is online, they are representing it… and anything they can do to help will be appreciated!

Then start talking to those who might be interested in increasing sales leads, contacts, and bookings.. no doubt there is a savvy sales agent already hammering away on facebook all day.  Why not extend that into a professional sales page that they link a twitter account to?  Then you have networking for the sales agent, and brand presence for the hotel!  The more of these sort of interactions, the better!

Your tech guy might already be there, but if I know hotel A/V and IT people… they are way too busy to actually *do* social media.  But remind them they could use it to keep informed about current trends and products they can geek out to, as well as ask questions to quickly resolve conundrums.  Maintenance could use it in the same way as well.  When all your people have accounts up and running, think how convenient it would be for a guest to twitter engineering about a burnt out lightbulb, or a Wireless point that is down?

Starting to wrap up this ramble!

SO – the social media guy can handle a property level account for twitter, a facebook page, a blog, and more… constantly cross posting and getting the word out, but it takes more than that to increase your online footprint.  You want sales people talking sales, and tech people talking tech… you want all the employees connecting with other hotels and hospitality employees, as well as to other guests and clients. You want people commenting on blogs about the hotel where applicable, and talking about it on their own.  You want people posting their pics and videos.  You want your brand to be bolstered by thousands… not just one social media guru locked in a windowless room in a cage.

BUT WHY?  WHY ON EARTH IS THIS ACTUALLY A USEFUL BUSINESS TOOL?

Well … this post was so bloody long we will save the meat for the next post.  It will make sense.  I promise!

This is from the “CNET” article with the ethics professors being quoted:

“‘Somebody is lying, or there is just too much confusion. Either way, Yelp’s got a problem,’ said Thomas White, director of the Center for Ethics and Business at Loyola Marymount University. ‘Trust is too easy to compromise and lose.’

Kirk O. Hanson, an ethics professor and executive director of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, said Yelp needs to better understand and manage the ethics risk that its business model presents.”

I don’t necessarily think anyone is lying.  But I do think the power of the last words hadn’t even been thought of until recently.  I often take a swipe at yelp for focusing too much on drunken youth culture versus running an important business.  I will say that if they hadn’t really gripped some of these concerns before…. they are mired in them for now.

Good reading:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10168065-2.html

Cnet’s question of credibility? (with a reprint of yelp reviews… might be interesting especially if you are mark W or fawn P.  I doubt they asked you to use that eh?)  This is amazing, as the reporter covers internet security and privacy, and an ethics professor call yelp out directly about there being “a problem”.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=13222

Commentary about yelp focusing on reporter during rebuttal, not reporter; suggests Stoppelman isn’t doing much to resolve problem head on and really lays into his approach to business, etc.

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/around_town/dining/Town-Hall-Mardi-Gras-Yelps-Twitter-Onslaught.html

Stoppelman going totally unhinged and loco on Twitter – he responded to me too.  Unhinged might be strong, but he obviously doesn’t know how to use twitter.  Maybe it is the right way  I think it is *hilarious*.  The site that helped deconstructing a brand’s ability to control the message, or do PR damage control is the one trying the most desperately to do so.  IRONY is rare… oh so rare.  What else it begs whether the leadership there is just surfing keywords on the internet or actually running a business.

http://consumerist.com/5157591/companies-accuse-yelp-of-review-extortion-yelp-says-no-way

The Consumerist weighs in, but the comments suggest the readers are experiencing ethical issues or confusion, at the least.

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/159911/dont_trust_yelp_or_anyone_else_with_your_online_reputation.html

Pc World comes out with an article about not trusting yelp with your rep as a business

http://www.thestandard.com/news/2009/02/22/yelp-blames-review-filter-part-bad-press

(More Stories from businesses)

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/02/20/yelp-disputes-extortion-story/

Wall Street Journal

http://www.examiner.com/x-2727-Chicago-Cats-Examiner~y2009m2d21-Vets-in-Chicago

Can you trust reviews for important decisions like vet?  One blogger suggests you can no longer truly trust yelp.

http://blogs.ft.com/techblog/2009/02/yelp-rejects-claims-of-extortion/

The financial Times, so one twitter user suggested that this will be picked up into Europe a bit… good point @shmooth