72% of Users Say They Trust Yelp ‘As Much’ as Their Own Friends

+TA

A new study published on WebProNews shows that consumers that use Yelp believe that Yelp reviews are VERY valuable. In fact, 73% of respondents say they trust Yelp reviews as much as their own friends.
This is mind boggling….

Online reviews are VERY quickly growing in importance and power.

And there has been a HUGE shift in the marketplace.
For years businesses have believed that referrals are the BEST customers. Friends referring friends is the best.
So Is Yelp the best now? With 73% of respondents say they trust Yelp reviews as much as their own friends.

Every business needs to manage and MARKET their online reviews PROACTIVELY.

I want to leave you today with 4 takeaways.

1. Get Your Customers To Write Reviews – you need a system in place that systematically and automatically gets your customers to visit yelp, google and the other TOP local directories and leave you outstanding reviews. I can tell you first hand I’ve only been asked to leave a review for a business less than 5 times.

2. Fix problems – understand that bad reviews are opportunities… When you get a bad review (and trust me you will) fix the issue, and ask the reviewer if they would post again saying you fixed the issue.

3. Track your brand name and reviews…

* Google Alerts – Service by google will email you when they find new results for your search
* Check out hoot suite to monitor and track mentions of your product or service on Twitter & Facebook
* BookMark Your Profile Page On: Google Plus Local & Yelp at the very least