Tip: If You’re Asking for Yelp Reviews on Twitter, Don’t Tweet @Yelp
Everyone knows that you’re not supposed to ask for reviews on Yelp. No ifs, ands, or buts.
Do. Not. Do it.
Yelp doesn’t want you saying or doing anything more than telling customers, “We’re on Yelp.” If you go beyond that, they consider it review solicitation and Yelp might out you for everyone to see right on your business profile.
But that doesn’t stop a lot of local businesses. No, there’s a ton of SMB’s asking for Yelp reviews. And they’re not being sneaky about it.
How Not to Ask for Reviews on Yelp
The best advice I can share for small business owners is this:
Don’t ask for Yelp reviews. On Twitter. Especially with the @Yelp handle in your tweet.
Hey Piezans nation, go give us a review over on @Yelp http://t.co/FjARurhaAT #Food… http://t.co/SsR9Jr0Pm9
— Frankie Meatballs (@PiezansPizza) August 15, 2013
We would love for you to give us a review on @Yelp http://t.co/1syXpM2MIL
— Chop House Burgers (@ChopHouseBurger) August 14, 2013
Check us out on @yelp and leave a review about your Red Carpet VIP experience – http://t.co/4rs0KGNkp0
— Red Carpet VIP (@RedCarpetVIP) August 14, 2013
@holly_steele_ @benjaminstengel @elbaso Thanks for laughing with us! Please review us up on @Yelp when you can: http://t.co/s6o6pvdFvC
— Laugh Factory LB (@LaughFactory_LB) August 14, 2013
Enjoyed your service at Shift PT? Help spread the word! Write us a review on @YELP, it only takes a second here http://t.co/sDUYJvwJy6
— ShiftPT (@Shift_PT) August 13, 2013
Love our restaurant by #USF on Fowler? Please leave us a nice review on @Yelp and share your story! http://t.co/vzZFiyZFUA
— Little Greek (@MyLittleGreek) May 22, 2013
#headdesk
(This post was inspired by Brian L.’s recent comment on Search Engine Land.)
Great stuff, M2. Thanks for posting.
My Zeigarnik effect always gets the better of me, so I couldn’t help but check those businesses’ pages – as well as their filtered reviews. Based on the reviews I see that made it onto the pages after the tweets/requests, it looks like pretty sad results:
Piezans: 3-4 reviews made it through, and none was filtered. (One of the reviews that made it through didn’t look solicited.) Pretty well-played, actually.
Chop House: none posted successfully, and none filtered. Looks like their customers just ignored them.
Red Carpet: same situation as Chop House’s. Totally ignored.
Laugh Factory: one harsh, 2-star review. Probably not posted as a result of the tweet, though. Otherwise, it looks like nobody even tried to post a review after the tweet.
Shift PT: 1-3 people posted reviews after the tweet, but they all got filtered.
Little Greek: 2 relatively experienced Yelpers posted reviews successfully, but did so about 3 weeks after the tweet, so they probably didn’t do it because of the tweet.
It’s bad enough these businesses seem not to know Yelp’s policies. Even worse is that most of their customers just ignore their tweets, which tells me the business owners are still in a push-marketing mindset and haven’t really gotten enough to their customers.
*Last sentence: meant to say “close enough to their customers.”
I was too lazy to click through and look at these companies’ Yelp pages, so I’m glad you did, Phil.
Yeah, I suspect a lot of it is just tweeting because they’ve been told that’s what they should do. Nevermind if anyone is actually seeing their tweets.