Hostage and Yelp are two words that appear in the same sentence way too often.
Unfortunately, this is how most business owners feel about Yelp and their modern day protection racket.
Of course, if you are really clever you can fight back the way Botto Bistro did (brilliantly I might add.)
I discovered this story via Andy Beal, the godfather of online reputation management (ORM), but it had tons of other coverage including AdWeek,
Apparently they ran a campaign to get as many one stars reviews as possible.
They offered a discount in exchange for a one star review.
With over 1,300 negative reviews it’s impossible to take any of their Yelp reviews seriously. Plus, if you read the reviews, many are quite funny.
This strategy might be scary for some companies and the discount they offered was probably more expensive than paying Yelp off, but the publicity, links, and exposure was probably worth it.
Bottom line, you don’t have to take negative reviews sitting down. Any user powered site offers the opportunity to manipulate results.
Simply Brilliant!
About David Melamed
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I think a lot of the reason that I don’t carry through with things that I come up with and why my motivation for ideas wanes is often because I fear the negative reviews before I even produce something that can actually be reviewed. It’s an awful paradox that I get stuck in, and seeing what this place did had me laughing, but it also made me think quite a bit. Not in the sense that I would pay for bad reviews – because it wouldn’t make sense for what I am doing – but just that reminder that they aren’t actually something to be feared. In some ways, bad reviews are much better than good ones. You read a good review, you get a fuzzy feeling and all, but if you read a bad review it often makes you motivated for change if the situation is within your control. This post indirectly reminded me of the actual benefit they have, and it ends up making my fear of them seem quite irrational, which is a good thing for me! 🙂
Considering negative reviews are the bane of existence for most people in business unless they truly invest themselves in feedback and improvement – something which is sadly lacking from a severe amount of companies in my opinion, and something that I welcome greatly – it is amusing to see a business using it as a marketing strategy. I have to question how effective it would really be and I would without a doubt be someone who would consider it scary, but good on them for doing it.