In addition to the popular platforms and strategies such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, there are other forms of social media marketing and advertising that you might consider trying when growing your business.
One of those platforms is Yelp. Yelp allows businesses to create profiles for themselves, which they can display and share to the community. These commonly include location, products and services offered, pictures or other images, and methods of contacting them. Additionally, a company can link its website from its Yelp profile, allowing customers to easily click the link and generating more traffic on your website. The goal of Yelp is primarily for customers to review and rate your business on a scale going from one through five. They can praise or criticize features they did or did not like publicly as part of their review. Additionally, companies being reviewed as well as other individuals can respond to their reviews in order to enable the two-way communication so essential of social media.
One downside of relying too heavily on Yelp is it has biased their reviews to favor frequent reviewers. You can give someone the best service in the world and if they aren’t Yelpers, their review is probably going to be filtered from public view depending on how many comments you get.
If you gain positive reviews on Yelp, it will certainly raise the reputation of your business and increase your customer base and sales, so it is worth taking a bit of time to set up a representative and professional profile for your company there.
Here are five ways to market your business on Yelp.
- Claim Your Yelp Business Page
By doing so, you will be able to upload photos, add a link to your website, offers exclusive deals, respond to customer reviews, and ensure your business information is up to date.
- Double Check to Make Sure Your Business Information is Correct
That includes your business name, address, phone number, and hours of operation.
Give as much information as possible to help people who may be searching for your type of goods or services. Having updated details also helps Google and Bing return correct information when people conduct local searches that relate to your business category.
- Daily Read and Respond to Customer Reviews
Reading reviews on a consistent will help you understand what customers think of your business. The more positive reviews you receive, the higher you will rank on the site. Don’t deem negative reviews as haters but as feedback for how you can improve your business.
You can respond to customer reviews — both positive and negative — via a private message, or by posting a public comment that everyone can see.
- Post Photos to Your Page
Photos are a valuable way to stage your business to prospective customers and adding a visual to your page will cause it to stand out to the browsers.
- Offer Deals and Discounts
Entice customers and prospects to visit your business with special deals and coupons on your business page. You can even use Yelp Deals, which are prepaid vouchers that gives consumers a discount at your place of business.