July 21, 2023 • 43 mins
What is everyone's go to restaurant and business review platform...? Ours is Yelp! We had an amazing opportuntiy to sit with Corynn Benoit from Yelp Utah in order to go over how Yelp is evolving as a platform. She is the lone operator for Yelp in the Utah outpost and running an amazing program. Tune in for Yelp tips and how to make sure you always get the best information.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:10):
Welcome everyone, another wonderful episode FoundersTherapy. Getting back, dusting off the
chairs, firing up the microphones.Craig is taking off his tinfoil hat so
that he can accommodate take it offalready, Okay, very good in reality,
Craig. I'm here now, I'mhere Craig and Matt. But again,
(00:31):
the real reason why we are actuallyhere, sitting down with our wonderful
friend, Karin Karn. Welcome,Hello, thank you for having me.
This is such a different opportunity.When I first met Karine, we typically
find people in like the local space, or at least businesses that most people
haven't heard of. And then wemet Karn, who represents one of the
(00:54):
larger apps on your phone. Karn, what company do you work for?
I work Yelp Okay, the littleknown app. Start up, A little
start up, A little startup.Yelp is a review platform that reviews restaurants
and businesses locally, so we usethose aren't familiar. I use a lot.
(01:15):
I know, I do meet alot of people who don't know who
yelp is. That's bonkers, Yeah, like your grandparents. No, it's
actually not. No, it's alot of I whenever I have a conversation
with somebody, I want to makesure they know what YELP is. So
I always ask before I dive in, because I want to make an assumption,
because I would feel like the youngerlike gen Z. Younger gen Z
(01:37):
wouldn't know what it is. Theyknow, they know, I don't know
it. It really depends. It'snot like one demographic. But good point,
like I don't think they use anythingbut Snapchat. Well they're looking for
like they're looking for Yeah, UGC right is that true? Meaning like
user generated content like social proof proofon TikTok. Yes, yes, I
(01:57):
think that is where generation could pointrescues. How do you cater to that
to all generations, all generations anddemographics, but that one in particular.
Yeah, that's a great question.I mean we do have actually quite as
before you get into the here's whyI'm asking that question. Sorry, I
want to put some context. Okay, sorry, because the purchasing power is
(02:21):
not yet really there for gen Zbecause they're still quite young, they're not
fully into their moneymaking years, andalso because of the point we just made
or where they're constantly looking for theuser generated content TikTok social media not really
into reviews right now or yet,right, Yeah, I mean we actually
we do have a handful. Imean, I don't know the statistics.
(02:45):
The majority of the people who usethe Yelp platform is over the age of
thirty. Um, but we Imean, Yelp does have a TikTok.
We have each city that has acommunity manager, which is what my title
is. We each run our owncity or states Instagram, Twitter, Facebook
(03:08):
as well. Some people still useFacebook too, but yeah, we still
we're putting out content on our Instagramas our primary platform that we're using for
that. So a lot of peopleare looking for I mean, that's what
I turned to social media for alot is looking at what other people are
doing, what the new restaurants are, the experience of the restaurant, getting
(03:29):
a feel for it. And sowe put a lot of that content out
on our Instagram too, at yelpUtah as our Instagram. But we have
handles all throughout the country as well. Do you do them very like hyper
localized yelp Salt Lake City? Yeah, so we have a yelp Utah.
So Utah's a smaller, like alittle bit smaller than like I mean,
(03:49):
YELP LA has their own for Lanot California obviously, but we have YELP
Utah and that that encompasses all ofUtah. But the focus is we have
me in Salt Lake City, butmy region extends out to like the Ogden
area in Park City. And thenwe have a part time person who's in
Utah County and she kind of isover all of the Utah County spots,
(04:10):
but we feature places from all overUtah. South of Lehigh is irrelevant.
It's okay, Yeah, we gotthe important stuff covered now, I'm kidding.
I can say that. You don'tsay that. That's right. Tell
us a little bit more about you. I feel like we like immediately jumped
into the details because we were socurious, so excited. Tell us about
(04:30):
you. Yeah. Um, so, my name is Krin. I am
the YELK community manager for Salt LakeCity. But as I mentioned, my
region extends out to Ogden, ParkCity and up to the Utah County line.
And I've been in this role fora year and a half now,
which is crazy. I took overthe role from someone who had been in
the role for like eleven years,so he kind of like started Yelp here
(04:55):
in Salt Lake City in Utah andkind of got the name out and built
this beautiful founding for me to kindof take on from there. But we
work with businesses to host events andmarketing opportunities and kind of spread the word
about local businesses here in Utah throughour social media, through kind of grassroots
and marketing efforts like we'll host events, will host opportunities for people to come
(05:18):
into their restaurant. And I alsomanage our beautiful community of individuals called the
yelp Elite Squad, which is peoplewho are active on the Yelp platform,
but they love supporting local businesses moreimportantly, and we host events and opportunities
for our yelp Elite Squad. Sothey're just people who are very passionate about
(05:40):
supporting local very passionate about, youknow, spending their dollars locally and learning
about local businesses, hearing business stories. And that's kind of a very quick,
rapid fire overview of what I do. That sounds interesting A number of
reviews you've given, Yes, howdo you qualify? Yeah, it's just
(06:01):
people who are super active on thel platform, so posting photos, sharing
their experiencing experiences, spreading that locallove to their favorite local businesses, interacting
with one another Yelp. I don'tthink people think of this a lot.
But Yelp as a social media platform. So you've friend people on it.
You can see your friends reviews,you can comment on them, you can
(06:24):
DM people. It's kind of itsown platform, which is primarily like previously,
not what I used it for.It was like I was looking at
reviews, I was reading reviews.But then as you start to friend more
people, you're commenting on photos,you're adding photos, you're writing reviews.
People are wanting to hear about yourexperiences, and you're sharing your experiences with
(06:44):
all of your friends on the elkplatform. And also anybody in the community
community can see your reviews as well, so in your photos too, So
it's this really cool social media platformthat's cool. I don't I hope this
does not sound bad. No,I don't think or I haven't thought of
Yelp as a social media platform.I use it all the time. Like
I was in California last week,and every day I'm looking up like good
(07:09):
restaurants near me, and then ofcourse I go to Yelp because that's the
first thing that comes up. Attimes. I'll have like the app on
my phone. I don't know thatI do right now. But point is
is, I've never thought of itas a social media platform. Yeah,
but it is like a brilliant useof one, right, Yeah, because
it's even more localized to a Facebookor whatever, you know, where you're
(07:29):
connecting with people near you. Yeah. Well it was interesting too because I
write a lot of reviews and Iactually had one recently that I wrote for
my I started going to a newvet and one of my dogs has a
lot of anxiety, and I startedgoing to this new vet office and which
like, oh my gosh, youput me on the spot Taylor'sville. Oh
(07:53):
my goodness, I can't believe I'mforgetting that. That's okay, Okay,
I just asked because I was alsorecently looking. Okay, I'll go to
my ELP and kind the review.I can't off. I would love to
shout them out because they're amazing.My dog has like so much anxiety and
I can't take her anywhere. Butthey were wonderful, and I wrote a
review and multiple people reached out tome and they were like this review.
(08:15):
I started going to them because ofthis review, like thank you so much.
I've had a great experience, andthey were like, i've met you,
I know I can trust you.Like I see your reviews, I
know I can trust you. Soit was just this cool way of being
like, oh my gosh, thisis so much more than just leaving a
review. It's all you know,help other people. Yeah, it was
really cool, like real time experience, especially something like that where it's your
(08:35):
pet and you care about and peoplecare about their pets, like you're actually
helping them. That's really cool.Yeah, it was cool. Yeah,
I'm curious to know bart about thesocial aspect of it, because you look
at other social platforms and over timethey become irrelevant in the sense that they
post you get just irrelevant content.You know. LinkedIn has been pretty good,
(09:00):
it's getting I think it's it's it'sit was pretty good. Then it
went kind of it dipped for alittle bit where you get a lot of
irrelevant content. But I think thatalgorithms are not changing that to make it
to where you get relevant content toyou. But people are always posting on
a business social network stuff about theirpersonal life and it drives me crazy.
Like, let's keep it relevant tothis, because if I want to know
about your personal life, I'll goto Instagram, yeah, or Facebook or
(09:24):
or even Twitter for that matter.With yelp, are you seeing kind of
a consistent community and posting and conversationsaround restaurants or nightclubs or hotels or whatever
about and conversations about that rather thanhey, look at my three year old
that was born yesterday or three yearolds born yesterday, my three year old's
(09:48):
birthday from yesterday, and like atall all the fun we're having on yelp,
But that would really make sense.No, it doesn't really make sense
for that platform. But people aresharing their experiences, so like my experience
at this veteran Areya office that Iwant to look up because I can't believe
I forgot the name. Um,like I wanted to share, Hey,
I have a shy dog who hasa lot of anxiety. The doctor got
on the floor, laid down withmy dog, made her feel comfortable before
(10:11):
examining her, and then she feltsuper you know, it's like an experience,
much better process. Yeah, it'slike not like here's a picture of
my kid graduating whatever. I don'tknow because because if you're if you're showing
your kids graduation, but it's ata venue that you want to review and
show and highlight rather, that makesa lot of sense. But if it's
(10:31):
just at your house, you're like, hey, cool us, yeay or
whatever. But if you're showing likethe venue in which you did had this
party, like a trampoline park oryou know, yeah, whatever, that
would make sense. Yes, yes, And typical reviews or like here,
like on Amazon, for example,it's a five star review and then someone
leaves a comment, but you're alsoable to kind of game the system a
(10:52):
bit, right, So I feelI feel like the social aspect is it
gets around that, at least ata glance. What do you mean by
gaming the system? Where I havefriends that will say, hey, I
just released a book, we gowrite a review for me, you know
what I mean? Yeah, sointerestingly enough, and also thank you,
Spencer. The name of the VeterinaryOffice is VCI. They're wonderful in Taylor's
(11:16):
Ville, the Taylor'sville Office. Um. But so, we have a software
called our Recommended Review Software and it'sthe integrity of our reviews on Yelp are
so important to the company, Likewe really value authenticity at Yelp. It's
one of our values in our notonly in our career paths that we have,
(11:37):
like they really focus on building authenticleaders and within the company, but
also in our reviews. So wehave this review software where we want to
make sure the reviews are legitimate andauthentic experiences that people have had. So
we want to make sure that competitorsaren't reviewing their competitors our businesses. Yeah,
(12:01):
so glad, Yeah, So wehave a software that goes through and
it's like, Okay, this personjust created an account on you know whatever
date. This may be a suspiciousprofile. And so they go into the
separate the separate space on the reviewso they don't show up as a review
on the on the main business page. Do they go into this separate section
(12:24):
and I'm blanking on actually what it'scalled, but not it's like not recommended
reviews. It's at the bottom,and it's like, Okay, this account
was flagged for maybe a suspicious thing. We're not sure if that we can
be trustworthy of that review. Wewant to make sure that the reviews that
are being posted on your business pageare legitimate. Well, because there are
companies out there the software companies thatwill help boost your review right, get
(12:48):
only the five stars and best reviewsare seen, which is not really an
accurate reflection of what that product actuallyis, yeah, or the service actually
is. I want to I wantto real look, I want to real
on standing up with this. Ilike to see companies at three and a
half or four stars out of five, because then you know there are some
negative ones that Okay, I wantto dive into that and see those totally.
(13:11):
I want to see why that's negativeand they're actually not all the way
at the bottom or they're not completelygone. Yeah, you know, so
having a social interaction listening to people'sexperiences of firsthand personally, which is very
beneficial. Yeah, and that youbrought that up as really perfect to segue
into this too. A lot ofpeople have this misconception that people turn online
(13:31):
for negativity all the time, andthat couldn't be further from the truth.
We have more five star reviews thanone, two and three star reviews combined
on the out platform. But eventhose, you know, somewhat critical reviews
or negative reviews build trust within consumers. So even you just saying that,
like, hey, you know,I want to dig into this, like
(13:52):
why do they have these types ofreviews. I want to learn more because
every experience that somebody has is differentthan the next, and it builds trust
within consumers. So business owners obviously, I mean I get reviewed two on
the events that I host and themarketing that I do. And it's when
you're a business owner, your businessis your baby, like that's that's yours.
(14:13):
It's very emotional to get something criticalum and but I think it just
really builds consumer trusts. I justdon't trust a five star I don't.
I just don't trust it because Idon't think it's accurate. Okay, if
I see a five star review,it's got the stars all the way fail
out to five, it's four anda half great, But what if the
(14:35):
experience, like it's not just astar review, you're reading the experience.
That's my points. But why Ithink Yelp is doing it better than others
because they have that that that componenttoo. Yes, if I go look
on you know, another e commerceplatform and it's got enough of five stars
in a bunch of comments, Iknow that they probably pulled out all the
negative ones or or hiding them somewhereor they're only putting the ones, the
(14:56):
best ones at the top. Iwant to I want to know why that's
a five star for like authentically,you know, So I don't. I
don't typically trust five star or reviewsbecause I just don't think they're entirely accurate.
Nobody's perfect, nobody's perfect, andnot everyone's going to have a great
experience at your joint, you knowwhat I mean? So I don't.
That's why I don't trust a fivestar. Okay, but I think it's
(15:18):
an industry play at the social piece. Yeah, does he help allow brands
or like a restaurant owner to hidereviews? No, like what Matt's say.
No, No, you guys,your software will just automatically put it
in a different section. Yeah,if it's not confirmed or not validated.
Yeah, if it feels like it'snot an authentic review or there's something suspicious
(15:41):
about it, yeah, the softwareautomatically does that. You can't pay to
do that. Business owners can't havetheir business owner profile and remove a review.
You cannot remove a review on Yelpor paid to have one removed.
Can people write reviews? Does abrand or does it? We'll just say
restaurants, right, does a restauranthave to have created a Yelp brand page
(16:03):
to be to begin getting reviews?And Yelp, can you go to a
restaurant and be like, Oh,this place sucked and there's nothing I'm gonna
write one anyway? Can you dothat? Yeah, so as a consumer
you can. I actually did thisthe other day. I'm going to shout
out Salt Egg City. It's anew breakfast place, wonderful. Oh my
gosh, it's so good out.Yes, it's operated out of com com
(16:25):
Kitchen, And they didn't have aYelp page yet, and I was like,
this place is so good. Iwant everyone who follows me on Yelp
to know about this place because it'sso good. They're buns, they're brioche
or I don't know what it whatthey are. Well, we just had
the breaky sandos ye, Like itwas so good, so good. I
look at each other, Spencer,come on, are you're almost forty?
We don't say that anymore at thisplace? You do like so good?
(16:51):
It was. It was wonderful.And yeah, the people that take care
of things and do a good joblike this is going to just be the
shout out cast. I mean that'swhat we're on Yelp, right Yeah,
Like you can go ahead and shouteveryone that's super Salt Egg City. Salt
Egg City. They are open onFriday, Saturdays and Sundays right now,
but they operate out of ComCom Kitchen, which is a commercial kitchen or ghost
kitchen, and um, it's justthis little tiny place. Anyways, they
(17:12):
didn't have a Yelp profile, wasmy point of that, and I was
like, oh my gosh, I'mgoing to add them on Yelp. So
as a consumer, you can adda business and then the business can go
on and claim it later if theywant to. Some businesses remain unclaimed on
Yelp, but there's a lot offree resources for businesses once you do claim
your page, so it's worthwhile todo so. But as a consumer,
(17:34):
you can just go on and andclaim aron up at a business. So
that's interesting about your growth model,your business model. Maybe expand on that
a little bit more because Yelp,I'm not sure necessarily how they make money,
how they're monetized. And you're saying, claim a page, make a
page. Are you going out andselling businesses to pay you to make a
page, and then you got toclaim it or nobod they can make it
(17:56):
or how does it work? Anybodycan make a business page and it's totally
free. So even if you claimyour business page, it's free to claim
it and it will just What thatmeans is if you pull up the Yelp
platform, it will say unclaimed,which means a business has not claimed their
page, but people can still reviewit and the restaurant still shows up for
people. How does it do thatdoes? It's just show up people reviewing
it and people reviewing, users goingto it, reviewing it, adding photos,
(18:21):
checking in. You can check inon Yelp too. Um. And
it's very different from say a Googlebusiness where you have to go in and
verify that with Google. Right,I don't know how that works. I
don't know how you know more aboutthat, Craig Right, You need to
go and do create a Google account. You have to pay them for you
to pay You don't have to paythem, Okay. You have to do
certain things though on the back endto make that a legitimate page to avoid
(18:42):
any sort of scamming or malicious behavioragainst your business. Right is it?
How does that compare to Google?Um? Don't I don't know enough about
either. But Google does it likeif you want to have your brand and
page, it's a little bit.It sounds like it's more effort on Google.
(19:03):
Interesting from my experience. Yeah,I don't know how how they operate.
But so a user can go toa restaurant, I like this restaurant.
I want to create a page aboutthat restaurant and our reliever review,
and then other people go there,they find they can find that restaurant on
Yelp as well, and then ifthe business finds, oh we gotta paygrest
(19:23):
review, Yeah, we can thenclaim that. What happens when they claim
it? Why is that different thanleaving it unclaimed? Yeah, so when
they claim it, when you claimthe business, it just means that now
the business owner has ownership of thatpage. So you create you know,
you can go to business dot Yelpdot com, create a free account and
claim your page. And there's abunch of free stuff that you can do
(19:45):
with your page as well. Soyou can add attributes. We have like
a black owned business attribute LGBTQ ownedfor people who are searching to support businesses.
We have women owned, we havedog friendly. You know, there's
all these different attributes that you canadd. You can also add categories to
your business, so you know,for example, if an Italian restaurant has
(20:07):
like they show sports, they havelike a bar that like a sports bar
and an Italian restaurant. People,you can claim your business as an Italian
restaurant and a sports bar, soyou can reach different demographics that are searching,
Hey I want to watch the gametonight. That'll pop up for people
who are searching for sports bars,or hey, I want an Italian dinner.
(20:29):
You know it reach different reaches,different demographics. You can also upload
your more information about the business owner, more information about your business, and
it's just keywords that you're putting onyour page allow people, allow people to
search for you more frequently. Sousing keywords, yeah, so using keywords
in your page so and those areall free for people to do when you
(20:51):
claim your page. To Matt's earlierpoint, I guess the monetization strategy of
Yelpa's ads, yeah yeah, yeah, entirely or can you be can you
pay to be seen? I guessit is still kind of the same concept
for an ad, but be seenfirst on the top of the page or
like a sponsored listing. Or whatever. There are sponsored listings, and I
(21:11):
honestly I don't know enough about thatworld. But I do know that like
ads and like some sometimes there willbe like a sponsored business when you search
for things. But I don't knowenough about that world speak about it.
That's a typical like entrepreneur like flufflego, like how are you making money?
Like we don't expect you to knowthat? And of course, of
(21:33):
course not what are some of thisis a little sensitive, maybe nervous.
I don't I don't want to likesound critical because I don't even know anything
of context. Yeah, Like yearsago, I saw like a friend of
a friend post he owns like arestaurant or a bar, and he was
just like, oh, yelp islike blackmailing me. And I was just
like what, why would he saythat? It sounds like yelp is very
(21:57):
democratic? Yeah. Yeah. Arethere like business businesses that are critical or
that are hesitant to use for certainreasons? Yeah? Absolutely. I think
I think a lot of people arevery hesitant to use review platforms in general.
I mean, like I was sayingbefore, your business owners, your
(22:18):
business is your baby. It's hardto get critical reviews. Um. But
no there's no way for you helpto remove reviews or only be posting the
negative reviews, and so I thinkthere's a lot of misconceptions and misinformation out
there too, but I think it'sjust so important. I mean, we
did a survey in twenty twenty two, and I'm forgetting like the exact statistics
of it. But obviously ten yearsago, people weren't online as much as
(22:41):
they are now, and now peopleare turning online more frequently and trusting reviews.
I mean social proof, yes,is the reviews. I look at
reviews every when I'm buying a bathingsuit or you know, like anything,
and reviews are as trusted as areview from a friend or family member.
(23:03):
Now, so an online review isas trusted as from somebody you've met.
And so I think people are hesitantto create Yelp profiles or so or review
pages because they think they're going toget all these critical reviews. But in
reality, like I said, wehave more five star reviews than one,
two and three star reviews combined.So if you're not using, you know,
(23:29):
you're missing out on that opportunity toget those positive reviews on Yelp.
If you're not creating a page orpeople are gonna I mean, like I
said, as a consumer, Ican create a page, you know anyway,
So people are any going to createa page anyways if they have something
to say. Yeah, So itsounds like maybe more fear of bad reviews,
(23:52):
maybe which might indicate that they didn'thave a great service. Maybe.
I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was gonna say the
same thing, like I if I'ma small business owner and I have a
restaurant or something similar to that,I'm looking at this as more of a
marketing tool rather than a review tool. And I want to be seen because
I look, people are coming tomy restaurant. It's gonna this will allow
(24:15):
me to be held to a higherstandard. I think you have to change
the mindset and nothing comes back tothe entrepreneurial journey and also the experience and
that you're dealing with a lot.You see that every day. You're dealing
with the business owners who are entrepreneurs, and you have to try and I'm
assuming have to try and convince themto change their mindset, Like why would
(24:37):
I want to be on Yelp,especially an older demographic that's not necessarily an
entire entirely comfortable or acclimated to thedigital space. You know, why is
it necessary to get on yelp?Why is it necessary to be online?
Why is it necessary to be reviewed? And why is it necessary to claim
(24:59):
a page and push this? Iguess we, for lack of better terms,
seo on yelp. Yeah right,So how are you dealing with that
every day? What do you doevery day? What's your day to day
like? Are you trying to convincesmall business owners? Are you trying to
attract more business owners? What's yourwhat's your day life? Yeah? So
I kind of operate in my ownlittle world here. Um, my department
(25:22):
is very different from other departments andYelp, and we partner with businesses is
in a very different way. Soa part of my job is definitely like
educating people, trying to get ridof those not get rid of, but
like just educate people about maybe themisconceptions that they have. But a lot
of what I do is partnering withbusiness owners. We want to help business
(25:44):
owners. All the resources that Ioffer for business owners are completely free.
We partner with businesses to help bringpeople to their grand openings or help bring
people into their restaurant space to highlightwhat they what they want to showcase at
their restaurant or not just restaurant Yelp. That's another misconception is that Yelp is
only for restaurants, but it's forall businesses. But m yeah, I
(26:07):
do. I run our social mediaaccount. I'm building our community of the
Yelp elate squad, hosting events forthem, interacting with them on the platform.
So my role is very different thanyou know other people within the Yelp
company, but I do part ofmy role is that education portion and trying
to talk to people about Yelp andalso getting curious about I'm always curious to
(26:30):
hear what people have to say aboutit and wanting to know why are you
hesitant about Yelp? What like tryingto get to the bottom of what are
the negative negative negativity? A lotof people just assume people are going online
to share a negative experience. Ithink it would be the number one How
do you counter that personally? What'syour approach? I mean saying what I've
(26:51):
said, like we have more fivestar reviews than one, two and three
star reviews. People are turning online, like the people are going to review
businesses anyway. And it's like wewere talking about that social currency, like
it's negative reviews or critical reviews.I don't want to even say negative,
Like critical reviews build consumer trust withinyour business, and you're not going to
(27:12):
please everyone. And I am apeople pleaser my whole life and want I
want to please everyone all the time. How was that received by these owners,
these business owners? Yeah, ifI'm a CPA firm or HVAC company
here locally and I'm just reluctant toget on there for that reason, Yeah,
(27:33):
you okay, you've You've maybe giventhat pitch, that spiel um,
and Okay, maybe I'm less reticentto do it. Maybe I'm going to
jump on board or I guess howwas that received that message or that does
it change a lot of minds?Yeah, it's received pretty well. And
but I think the more impact thatI have in my role is we bring
(27:59):
people into business. So for example, we are we partnered with like a
an eyebrow waxing studio recently and theywere celebrating their five year anniversary and they
were like, it's arrow edge toshout them out. They're amazing, And
they were like, hey, we'rehaving a five year anniversary. We'd love
to get some folks like in thelike some new people in the doors to
kind of experience have it an experiencehere. And I'm able to bring the
(28:23):
people from our yelped community and ouryelp Elite squad into that business to kind
of showcase what they're known for.So that's kind of more my role.
And I think once businesses see andthat's totally free for businesses, and I
do all of the RSPP management,the marketing for those events, and like
we show up, I'm like,how many people do you want? I
(28:45):
can get them there. We showup, they show they show off their
business and showcase what they're known for. And I think seeing that and seeing
how many people hyper locally want tosupport local, want to spend their money
locally, want to help support theirsmall local business, that's what not changes
minds, but I think that's whatgets people on board, like, hey,
yelps an advocate for us. Theywant to support us, they want
(29:07):
to provide these resources for us.So I think that's more of what my
role showcases to business bringing into thespotlight. Yeah. Yeah, if I'm
a small business guy, I wantto jump into the spotlight. I want
to be seen. I want peopleto judge me. How are businesses getting
the opportunity to part partner with you? Then? So like arrow Edge,
(29:29):
like did they just reach out toyou and you're like, yeah, sure,
do you have a long queue todo partnerships? Does that work?
Actually that was a unique one.They reached out to me. Usually I'm
reaching out to businesses to see ifthey want a partner and m yeah,
but I love when businesses reach outto me. My job. Is there
typically like a long wait or dothey have to qualify somehow? Yeah?
(29:49):
We book a couple months in advance, so like if people wanted to partner
now, we would be booking intothe September time frame. But ready for
que four people? Yes, ohmy gosh. Yeah yeah so yeah cool.
Yeah. And that's also a freeservice. Yeah, totally free.
And it's cool because I, likeI said, I do all of the
(30:10):
rs VP management. So we havepeople sign up. I'm marketing it through
our newsletters, on our calendar,on our social media. I get all
the people there and then I meanit's much more than the business just showing
up and saying hey, this iswhat we do. But I can get
people into businesses and then have thatcreate this wonderful experience for people too.
That's so cool. I'm going totell my wife that you do this.
(30:32):
Yeah, that yelp offers this,right, she is not a founder,
but she's part of the founding teamof a new medspa. Oh yes,
and they're like just getting started andthey're kind of like, we got to
try and do this, we gottatry that, but like this is like
perfect for businesses like that. Wewould love to that's really cool. Yeah,
I was just you may have noticed. I'd probably looked distracted, but
(30:52):
I was looking at the Instagram profileand your social game is solid. Yeah,
it's great. Yeah, it's likereally good content. Its good engagement's
awesome, which is like unsurprising foryelp, right, but yeah, it's
good surprising for Karin. She's drivingyelp here. Yeah, hopefully that didn't
sound like a slight towards you,but that's the point of yelp. Right.
(31:14):
Yeah, Wow, like yelp actuallygets engages your best efforts. I'm
not gonna lie. You kind ofsurprised me. No, No, it's
great. It's really good content,and I'm seeing something like I just followed
it because I'm like, oh mygosh, there's good restaurants. Yeah.
Every time my wife and I goout, she's like, oh, I
have to I follow these like fewaccounts on Instagram and starts looking up restaurants.
(31:36):
But like you've got, yeah,a bunch right there. Yeah,
And all of our social media contentis free to We don't charge for people
to be featured, and a lotof times it's so I co run it
with Heather who's in Utah County,and my intern helps as well, and
um, yeah, so we featurebusinesses for free. We do a series
called hashtag Meet the Owner where weshowcase owners. We just highlighted Skillets,
(31:59):
which is some breakfast burrito place andthey're owners. Like, people love to
see the face behind businesses, andthat's what gets people coming back to businesses
as well, which is why ourevents are so fun because a lot of
times the business owner will be theresharing their story and then you know,
people within the Yelp community feel moreconnected to that business because they're hearing the
(32:19):
story behind the business and experiencing itfor themselves. And anyways, that's it's
a cool, it's been fun.How how could somebody who is familiar with
Yelp but not active on it,leverage it, like get the most out
of it, like a business owneror no, no, no, like
a consumer consumer. Yeah, becauselike like I said, I was on
(32:42):
Yelp every day last week literally justlike looking at restaurants and stuff. But
I don't go to it every day, Like it's usually if I'm looking for
something new, if I'm out oftown or traveling or whatever, Like,
how can I get more out ofit? What's the best way? Like
is social one of the best spacebecause there's I would assume so, because
there's always new content being pushed pushedout, But like, yeah, how
(33:07):
can I get the most out ofYeah, I mean there's a lot of
unknown. Like I don't think peoplerealize the extent that Yelp is a social
media platform, Like not only areyou sharing reviews and photos and then you
can add people on Yelp and youcan see your friends photos and your friends
reviews. We also have a spacecalled talk where people are like, Hey,
I'm looking for a new chiropractor,Like is there any anywhere? Like
(33:30):
I've looked kind of on Yelp reviews, but I'd love to hear like personal
experiences from people within the Yelp community. So there's like a whole chat space
too, m DMS compliments. Ohand I was going to say something else
and I'm totally blanking on it.Oh. We also have an events page
and businesses can post upcoming events thatthey have going on too, and we
(33:52):
host I host events. Um ourteam host events for the local community as
well every couple of months, justevents that are open to anybody with a
Yelp account. So if you havea Yelp account, you can come to
our events and sign up for them. So in May, we hosted an
event with UM a shaved ice placecalled Ocean Ice and anybody with the Yelp
(34:13):
account could come to that event andit was awesome. So yeah, do
Yelp users get like VIP access atthese events? Like do they get like,
hey, you're a subscribed Yelp user, you have the app, Like
you get a free snow cone?Like yeah like that. Yeah, So
for that particular event, everybody whoRSVP'd had to have a Yelp account,
(34:37):
So you have to have a Yelpaccount in order to attend this event,
and then you for that event.Yeah, everybody who RSVP'd got a free
shaved ice Socian ice and it wasawesome. Yeah. But then like obviously
I'm not like taking full of people. Not enough people know about it.
And that's part of my job too, is spreading the word about what we
do, because I don't think enoughpeople know about how we yeah, and
(35:00):
how involved we are in the community. And we love supporting community events too.
I mean, we're not just partneringwith businesses. We're partnering with We
partnered with mill Creek Common. Theyhad a Juneteenth festival last week, um,
and we partnered with them to kindof spread the word about that opportunity
too. So we love I mean, it's hyperlocal. We want to support
local communities and local community organizations inaddition to businesses as well. So yeah,
(35:25):
that's so cool. Yeah, let'spen aren't on the site not the
mobile adding adding people? Yeah,Craig No, And actually did notice that
there are sponsored results to top?Yeah, because I put in German Food
near me German food and then thetop was like a Maverick gas station.
(35:45):
How interesting under the sponsored results,But then it went to the German stuff
like Siegfriedsdale contestant and there was anotherone in farming is there one was Wellers
did Wellers Best. I think they'reGerman. I don't want to say that
and then not have that not beI don't correct, but they were on
one of our Oh that's another thingwe do too. They were on one
of our top foodless um last yearand we do. We released like Top
(36:08):
one hundred places to eat in theSouthwest. We do. We did Top
one hundred donuts in the US andFresh Donuts in Delhi. In Salt Lake
City was number twenty six, twentysix. N Yeah, have you ever
been there? Yeah, they're amazing, and you know it's so funny as
you like go there and it's tiny. It's tiny. It's not marketing like
there's not a big marketity sign oranything now, but there's always a line
(36:30):
around the building. Now so good. It was crazy the first time.
It's in seventeen south in State twentyseven. Set out to these guys.
Yeah, we went as well,this is like a family and that everyone
was like had like a couple ofkids, and yeah, the line in
the whole deal. It's so itwas so crazy. The first time I
(36:50):
went there, there was a familyin front of me, and they were
like, we haven't been here inso long. And the owners were working
the cash register. They were like, we haven't been here in so long.
I don't know if you remember us, but they were like, oh
yeah, and they knew the namesof all the kids and it had been
like years since they had been there. I was like, and then they
knew exactly what. Yes, literallyafter this, it's so good. The
(37:12):
line is always out the door,like a wrapped around the building. It's
crazy to Delhi too. Not justdonuts. I've never been called fresh don
they do. Yeah, they dohave a menu, but it's it's all
donuts. Wow. So and nowthat's that was an interesting kind of Yelp
check in where like hey, Utahkind of being represented. That was super
cool. But it's amazing to seethe way that the platform again kind of
(37:37):
helps and synergize with everything. Right, Like Yelp wants users, but in
order to get users, they're saying, look, here's the benefits of these
local businesses, which in turn createsmore users, et cetera, et cetera.
Like that's a really cool just feedbackloop right there that's been generated.
Yeah, and actually you just saidyou just use the word check in.
You were asking how you can utilizethe platform more as a consumer you and
(38:00):
there's check in offers that businesses canoffer. So we partner with Cool Roots
Coffee. I don't know if you'vebeen there, but they're amazing and if
you check in, you get acertain percentage off your order. Cool if
you check in on yelp. Sothen when you check in, there's this
is kind of the social component.People within your friends list can say,
oh, crin's at Roots Coffee andI wonder how hers you know, here's
(38:22):
a picture from it. I wonderhow experience was so and then when you
have enough check in offers, youcan become like the Duchess of Sugarhouse Coffee,
which I recently Yes, thank you, thank you. So there's it's
kind of like Game five. Yeah, yes, yeah, as you should
(38:42):
your royal lineage right there. Verycool, that's awesome. Yeah, I'm
interested in how people would get ahold of you, businesses, How would
they reach out to you had theyhad that one group the company got a
hold of you. Yeah, yeah, businesses reach out on our Instagram so
at yelp. Utah's how a lotof businesses I feel like that's just how
people communicate now, which is interesting. The world that we live in is
(39:05):
very interesting. But they can alsoreach out to me via email Salt Lake
City at yelp dot com, umand or on Yelp if you want to
do I would respond to that onthe Yelp platform, but I would say
Instagram is kind of our most popularvenue for reaching out or email. And
you have some events coming up atall? Yeah, yes, when are
(39:28):
they? When are they? Yeah? Or what are they? What are
they? And where? Yeah?We so these are we have events only
for our Yelpa lage squad coming up, but we're doing We're partnering with Pizza
Volta in Sugar House. We're partneringwith Nico Sushi and Raman in Kaysville.
So yeah, like I said,we highlight businesses from all over, it's
(39:49):
not just Salt Lake City proper.So UM excited for those events. We're
also partnering with um Slapfish, whichis a larger known name UM but they
recently did a menu, They redidtheir whole menu and they're trying to spread
the word about that, so we'repartnering with them too. So those are
kind of the events that wed.How often are you doing these events or
these partnerships? It depends. Imean this past month we had five events
(40:14):
I think, and um July wehave three, So we have at least
like two or three or four amonth, depends on the month. So
how would you what would you tellsmall business owners right now? Why?
What's what's the pitch sell them rightnow? From from the duchess, I'm
(40:36):
awesome. From no, I mean, I I don't think I'm just biased.
We have a really wonderful community withinthe ELP community. They are so
passionate about supporting local businesses and alsolove connecting with other foodies and other people
who have that same passion, andso our events are so much fun.
(40:59):
They bring such a great energy.People are returning to the businesses because they've
had this connection with the business owner, they've had this experience at this event.
We partnered with Brustillery last a coupleweeks ago, actually not last week,
a couple of weeks ago, whichis a festival that highlights and showcases
(41:20):
local breweries and distilleries, and oneof our one of the folks from mari
Yelpolie Squad, went to it metwith the business owner at Ogden's own distillery,
and then she was like, hey, I actually went up to Ogden
because I loved their distillery so much. I went up to Ogden from Salt
Lake to go check out their distillery. Like, people love supporting local and
(41:43):
are so passionate about getting to knowbusiness owners and supporting locals. So that's
I guess that's kind of my pitchin a roundabout way. But we have
just a really vibrant, beautiful communityhere and we want to help you.
We want to help business owners.We want to bring people into your business
and showcase and highlight what you're knownfor. Um and yeah, we love
(42:05):
to partner and I try to makeit easy for businesses too. I mean,
like I said, I'm doing themarketing and the RSPP management, and
we bring people to your business andyou get to show off what you do
and it's a lot of fun.And that's true for any market really,
not just you in Salt Lake.Yeah, but that can be YELP in
general. Yes, Yeah, wehave one of at least one of me
in every major city. I meanLa obviously has like four I think because
(42:28):
it's so big there, but there'sat least one community manager in every major
city in the US and Canada.Cool. Yeah, I want you to
fact check something for me. Iheard. I heard that there's going to
be a Yelp top five podcast studiosin Utah and it's like the pod mill
(42:49):
and then like way down the listis anything that like nobody can even recall
by name someone. We haven't releasedthat to the public yet. Shoot,
we're actually not sorry, Oh Ishouldn't say it an yet. Very thoughtful.
Yeah, thank you very much.Podmail right, that's right on the
fly. That was pretty good.That was clever. Thank you. Well,
(43:12):
Yelp is awesome. That's my takeawayfrom US. I haven't seen any
downsides. No Yelp blackmailing. Juststep your game up, you don't like
Yeah exactly. Yeah, yeah that'swhat I took. Yeah, like,
you probably need to work on yourservice. Yeah, maybe not put band
aids in the food anymore. Tom, come on, great about Thank you
(43:36):
so very much. This was amazing. Thank you, This is fun.
Thank you appreciate it. George
Welcome everyone, another wonderful episode FoundersTherapy. Getting back, dusting off the
chairs, firing up the microphones.Craig is taking off his tinfoil hat so
that he can accommodate take it offalready, Okay, very good in reality,
Craig. I'm here now, I'mhere Craig and Matt. But again,
(00:31):
the real reason why we are actuallyhere, sitting down with our wonderful
friend, Karin Karn. Welcome,Hello, thank you for having me.
This is such a different opportunity.When I first met Karine, we typically
find people in like the local space, or at least businesses that most people
haven't heard of. And then wemet Karn, who represents one of the
(00:54):
larger apps on your phone. Karn, what company do you work for?
I work Yelp Okay, the littleknown app. Start up, A little
start up, A little startup.Yelp is a review platform that reviews restaurants
and businesses locally, so we usethose aren't familiar. I use a lot.
(01:15):
I know, I do meet alot of people who don't know who
yelp is. That's bonkers, Yeah, like your grandparents. No, it's
actually not. No, it's alot of I whenever I have a conversation
with somebody, I want to makesure they know what YELP is. So
I always ask before I dive in, because I want to make an assumption,
because I would feel like the youngerlike gen Z. Younger gen Z
(01:37):
wouldn't know what it is. Theyknow, they know, I don't know
it. It really depends. It'snot like one demographic. But good point,
like I don't think they use anythingbut Snapchat. Well they're looking for
like they're looking for Yeah, UGC right is that true? Meaning like
user generated content like social proof proofon TikTok. Yes, yes, I
(01:57):
think that is where generation could pointrescues. How do you cater to that
to all generations, all generations anddemographics, but that one in particular.
Yeah, that's a great question.I mean we do have actually quite as
before you get into the here's whyI'm asking that question. Sorry, I
want to put some context. Okay, sorry, because the purchasing power is
(02:21):
not yet really there for gen Zbecause they're still quite young, they're not
fully into their moneymaking years, andalso because of the point we just made
or where they're constantly looking for theuser generated content TikTok social media not really
into reviews right now or yet,right, Yeah, I mean we actually
we do have a handful. Imean, I don't know the statistics.
(02:45):
The majority of the people who usethe Yelp platform is over the age of
thirty. Um, but we Imean, Yelp does have a TikTok.
We have each city that has acommunity manager, which is what my title
is. We each run our owncity or states Instagram, Twitter, Facebook
(03:08):
as well. Some people still useFacebook too, but yeah, we still
we're putting out content on our Instagramas our primary platform that we're using for
that. So a lot of peopleare looking for I mean, that's what
I turned to social media for alot is looking at what other people are
doing, what the new restaurants are, the experience of the restaurant, getting
(03:29):
a feel for it. And sowe put a lot of that content out
on our Instagram too, at yelpUtah as our Instagram. But we have
handles all throughout the country as well. Do you do them very like hyper
localized yelp Salt Lake City? Yeah, so we have a yelp Utah.
So Utah's a smaller, like alittle bit smaller than like I mean,
(03:49):
YELP LA has their own for Lanot California obviously, but we have YELP
Utah and that that encompasses all ofUtah. But the focus is we have
me in Salt Lake City, butmy region extends out to like the Ogden
area in Park City. And thenwe have a part time person who's in
Utah County and she kind of isover all of the Utah County spots,
(04:10):
but we feature places from all overUtah. South of Lehigh is irrelevant.
It's okay, Yeah, we gotthe important stuff covered now, I'm kidding.
I can say that. You don'tsay that. That's right. Tell
us a little bit more about you. I feel like we like immediately jumped
into the details because we were socurious, so excited. Tell us about
(04:30):
you. Yeah. Um, so, my name is Krin. I am
the YELK community manager for Salt LakeCity. But as I mentioned, my
region extends out to Ogden, ParkCity and up to the Utah County line.
And I've been in this role fora year and a half now,
which is crazy. I took overthe role from someone who had been in
the role for like eleven years,so he kind of like started Yelp here
(04:55):
in Salt Lake City in Utah andkind of got the name out and built
this beautiful founding for me to kindof take on from there. But we
work with businesses to host events andmarketing opportunities and kind of spread the word
about local businesses here in Utah throughour social media, through kind of grassroots
and marketing efforts like we'll host events, will host opportunities for people to come
(05:18):
into their restaurant. And I alsomanage our beautiful community of individuals called the
yelp Elite Squad, which is peoplewho are active on the Yelp platform,
but they love supporting local businesses moreimportantly, and we host events and opportunities
for our yelp Elite Squad. Sothey're just people who are very passionate about
(05:40):
supporting local very passionate about, youknow, spending their dollars locally and learning
about local businesses, hearing business stories. And that's kind of a very quick,
rapid fire overview of what I do. That sounds interesting A number of
reviews you've given, Yes, howdo you qualify? Yeah, it's just
(06:01):
people who are super active on thel platform, so posting photos, sharing
their experiencing experiences, spreading that locallove to their favorite local businesses, interacting
with one another Yelp. I don'tthink people think of this a lot.
But Yelp as a social media platform. So you've friend people on it.
You can see your friends reviews,you can comment on them, you can
(06:24):
DM people. It's kind of itsown platform, which is primarily like previously,
not what I used it for.It was like I was looking at
reviews, I was reading reviews.But then as you start to friend more
people, you're commenting on photos,you're adding photos, you're writing reviews.
People are wanting to hear about yourexperiences, and you're sharing your experiences with
(06:44):
all of your friends on the elkplatform. And also anybody in the community
community can see your reviews as well, so in your photos too, So
it's this really cool social media platformthat's cool. I don't I hope this
does not sound bad. No,I don't think or I haven't thought of
Yelp as a social media platform.I use it all the time. Like
I was in California last week,and every day I'm looking up like good
(07:09):
restaurants near me, and then ofcourse I go to Yelp because that's the
first thing that comes up. Attimes. I'll have like the app on
my phone. I don't know thatI do right now. But point is
is, I've never thought of itas a social media platform. Yeah,
but it is like a brilliant useof one, right, Yeah, because
it's even more localized to a Facebookor whatever, you know, where you're
(07:29):
connecting with people near you. Yeah. Well it was interesting too because I
write a lot of reviews and Iactually had one recently that I wrote for
my I started going to a newvet and one of my dogs has a
lot of anxiety, and I startedgoing to this new vet office and which
like, oh my gosh, youput me on the spot Taylor'sville. Oh
(07:53):
my goodness, I can't believe I'mforgetting that. That's okay, Okay,
I just asked because I was alsorecently looking. Okay, I'll go to
my ELP and kind the review.I can't off. I would love to
shout them out because they're amazing.My dog has like so much anxiety and
I can't take her anywhere. Butthey were wonderful, and I wrote a
review and multiple people reached out tome and they were like this review.
(08:15):
I started going to them because ofthis review, like thank you so much.
I've had a great experience, andthey were like, i've met you,
I know I can trust you.Like I see your reviews, I
know I can trust you. Soit was just this cool way of being
like, oh my gosh, thisis so much more than just leaving a
review. It's all you know,help other people. Yeah, it was
really cool, like real time experience, especially something like that where it's your
(08:35):
pet and you care about and peoplecare about their pets, like you're actually
helping them. That's really cool.Yeah, it was cool. Yeah,
I'm curious to know bart about thesocial aspect of it, because you look
at other social platforms and over timethey become irrelevant in the sense that they
post you get just irrelevant content.You know. LinkedIn has been pretty good,
(09:00):
it's getting I think it's it's it'sit was pretty good. Then it
went kind of it dipped for alittle bit where you get a lot of
irrelevant content. But I think thatalgorithms are not changing that to make it
to where you get relevant content toyou. But people are always posting on
a business social network stuff about theirpersonal life and it drives me crazy.
Like, let's keep it relevant tothis, because if I want to know
about your personal life, I'll goto Instagram, yeah, or Facebook or
(09:24):
or even Twitter for that matter.With yelp, are you seeing kind of
a consistent community and posting and conversationsaround restaurants or nightclubs or hotels or whatever
about and conversations about that rather thanhey, look at my three year old
that was born yesterday or three yearolds born yesterday, my three year old's
(09:48):
birthday from yesterday, and like atall all the fun we're having on yelp,
But that would really make sense.No, it doesn't really make sense
for that platform. But people aresharing their experiences, so like my experience
at this veteran Areya office that Iwant to look up because I can't believe
I forgot the name. Um,like I wanted to share, Hey,
I have a shy dog who hasa lot of anxiety. The doctor got
on the floor, laid down withmy dog, made her feel comfortable before
(10:11):
examining her, and then she feltsuper you know, it's like an experience,
much better process. Yeah, it'slike not like here's a picture of
my kid graduating whatever. I don'tknow because because if you're if you're showing
your kids graduation, but it's ata venue that you want to review and
show and highlight rather, that makesa lot of sense. But if it's
(10:31):
just at your house, you're like, hey, cool us, yeay or
whatever. But if you're showing likethe venue in which you did had this
party, like a trampoline park oryou know, yeah, whatever, that
would make sense. Yes, yes, And typical reviews or like here,
like on Amazon, for example,it's a five star review and then someone
leaves a comment, but you're alsoable to kind of game the system a
(10:52):
bit, right, So I feelI feel like the social aspect is it
gets around that, at least ata glance. What do you mean by
gaming the system? Where I havefriends that will say, hey, I
just released a book, we gowrite a review for me, you know
what I mean? Yeah, sointerestingly enough, and also thank you,
Spencer. The name of the VeterinaryOffice is VCI. They're wonderful in Taylor's
(11:16):
Ville, the Taylor'sville Office. Um. But so, we have a software
called our Recommended Review Software and it'sthe integrity of our reviews on Yelp are
so important to the company, Likewe really value authenticity at Yelp. It's
one of our values in our notonly in our career paths that we have,
(11:37):
like they really focus on building authenticleaders and within the company, but
also in our reviews. So wehave this review software where we want to
make sure the reviews are legitimate andauthentic experiences that people have had. So
we want to make sure that competitorsaren't reviewing their competitors our businesses. Yeah,
(12:01):
so glad, Yeah, So wehave a software that goes through and
it's like, Okay, this personjust created an account on you know whatever
date. This may be a suspiciousprofile. And so they go into the
separate the separate space on the reviewso they don't show up as a review
on the on the main business page. Do they go into this separate section
(12:24):
and I'm blanking on actually what it'scalled, but not it's like not recommended
reviews. It's at the bottom,and it's like, Okay, this account
was flagged for maybe a suspicious thing. We're not sure if that we can
be trustworthy of that review. Wewant to make sure that the reviews that
are being posted on your business pageare legitimate. Well, because there are
companies out there the software companies thatwill help boost your review right, get
(12:48):
only the five stars and best reviewsare seen, which is not really an
accurate reflection of what that product actuallyis, yeah, or the service actually
is. I want to I wantto real look, I want to real
on standing up with this. Ilike to see companies at three and a
half or four stars out of five, because then you know there are some
negative ones that Okay, I wantto dive into that and see those totally.
(13:11):
I want to see why that's negativeand they're actually not all the way
at the bottom or they're not completelygone. Yeah, you know, so
having a social interaction listening to people'sexperiences of firsthand personally, which is very
beneficial. Yeah, and that youbrought that up as really perfect to segue
into this too. A lot ofpeople have this misconception that people turn online
(13:31):
for negativity all the time, andthat couldn't be further from the truth.
We have more five star reviews thanone, two and three star reviews combined
on the out platform. But eventhose, you know, somewhat critical reviews
or negative reviews build trust within consumers. So even you just saying that,
like, hey, you know,I want to dig into this, like
(13:52):
why do they have these types ofreviews. I want to learn more because
every experience that somebody has is differentthan the next, and it builds trust
within consumers. So business owners obviously, I mean I get reviewed two on
the events that I host and themarketing that I do. And it's when
you're a business owner, your businessis your baby, like that's that's yours.
(14:13):
It's very emotional to get something criticalum and but I think it just
really builds consumer trusts. I justdon't trust a five star I don't.
I just don't trust it because Idon't think it's accurate. Okay, if
I see a five star review,it's got the stars all the way fail
out to five, it's four anda half great, But what if the
(14:35):
experience, like it's not just astar review, you're reading the experience.
That's my points. But why Ithink Yelp is doing it better than others
because they have that that that componenttoo. Yes, if I go look
on you know, another e commerceplatform and it's got enough of five stars
in a bunch of comments, Iknow that they probably pulled out all the
negative ones or or hiding them somewhereor they're only putting the ones, the
(14:56):
best ones at the top. Iwant to I want to know why that's
a five star for like authentically,you know, So I don't. I
don't typically trust five star or reviewsbecause I just don't think they're entirely accurate.
Nobody's perfect, nobody's perfect, andnot everyone's going to have a great
experience at your joint, you knowwhat I mean? So I don't.
That's why I don't trust a fivestar. Okay, but I think it's
(15:18):
an industry play at the social piece. Yeah, does he help allow brands
or like a restaurant owner to hidereviews? No, like what Matt's say.
No, No, you guys,your software will just automatically put it
in a different section. Yeah,if it's not confirmed or not validated.
Yeah, if it feels like it'snot an authentic review or there's something suspicious
(15:41):
about it, yeah, the softwareautomatically does that. You can't pay to
do that. Business owners can't havetheir business owner profile and remove a review.
You cannot remove a review on Yelpor paid to have one removed.
Can people write reviews? Does abrand or does it? We'll just say
restaurants, right, does a restauranthave to have created a Yelp brand page
(16:03):
to be to begin getting reviews?And Yelp, can you go to a
restaurant and be like, Oh,this place sucked and there's nothing I'm gonna
write one anyway? Can you dothat? Yeah, so as a consumer
you can. I actually did thisthe other day. I'm going to shout
out Salt Egg City. It's anew breakfast place, wonderful. Oh my
gosh, it's so good out.Yes, it's operated out of com com
(16:25):
Kitchen, And they didn't have aYelp page yet, and I was like,
this place is so good. Iwant everyone who follows me on Yelp
to know about this place because it'sso good. They're buns, they're brioche
or I don't know what it whatthey are. Well, we just had
the breaky sandos ye, Like itwas so good, so good. I
look at each other, Spencer,come on, are you're almost forty?
We don't say that anymore at thisplace? You do like so good?
(16:51):
It was. It was wonderful.And yeah, the people that take care
of things and do a good joblike this is going to just be the
shout out cast. I mean that'swhat we're on Yelp, right Yeah,
Like you can go ahead and shouteveryone that's super Salt Egg City. Salt
Egg City. They are open onFriday, Saturdays and Sundays right now,
but they operate out of ComCom Kitchen, which is a commercial kitchen or ghost
kitchen, and um, it's justthis little tiny place. Anyways, they
(17:12):
didn't have a Yelp profile, wasmy point of that, and I was
like, oh my gosh, I'mgoing to add them on Yelp. So
as a consumer, you can adda business and then the business can go
on and claim it later if theywant to. Some businesses remain unclaimed on
Yelp, but there's a lot offree resources for businesses once you do claim
your page, so it's worthwhile todo so. But as a consumer,
(17:34):
you can just go on and andclaim aron up at a business. So
that's interesting about your growth model,your business model. Maybe expand on that
a little bit more because Yelp,I'm not sure necessarily how they make money,
how they're monetized. And you're saying, claim a page, make a
page. Are you going out andselling businesses to pay you to make a
page, and then you got toclaim it or nobod they can make it
(17:56):
or how does it work? Anybodycan make a business page and it's totally
free. So even if you claimyour business page, it's free to claim
it and it will just What thatmeans is if you pull up the Yelp
platform, it will say unclaimed,which means a business has not claimed their
page, but people can still reviewit and the restaurant still shows up for
people. How does it do thatdoes? It's just show up people reviewing
it and people reviewing, users goingto it, reviewing it, adding photos,
(18:21):
checking in. You can check inon Yelp too. Um. And
it's very different from say a Googlebusiness where you have to go in and
verify that with Google. Right,I don't know how that works. I
don't know how you know more aboutthat, Craig Right, You need to
go and do create a Google account. You have to pay them for you
to pay You don't have to paythem, Okay. You have to do
certain things though on the back endto make that a legitimate page to avoid
(18:42):
any sort of scamming or malicious behavioragainst your business. Right is it?
How does that compare to Google?Um? Don't I don't know enough about
either. But Google does it likeif you want to have your brand and
page, it's a little bit.It sounds like it's more effort on Google.
(19:03):
Interesting from my experience. Yeah,I don't know how how they operate.
But so a user can go toa restaurant, I like this restaurant.
I want to create a page aboutthat restaurant and our reliever review,
and then other people go there,they find they can find that restaurant on
Yelp as well, and then ifthe business finds, oh we gotta paygrest
(19:23):
review, Yeah, we can thenclaim that. What happens when they claim
it? Why is that different thanleaving it unclaimed? Yeah, so when
they claim it, when you claimthe business, it just means that now
the business owner has ownership of thatpage. So you create you know,
you can go to business dot Yelpdot com, create a free account and
claim your page. And there's abunch of free stuff that you can do
(19:45):
with your page as well. Soyou can add attributes. We have like
a black owned business attribute LGBTQ ownedfor people who are searching to support businesses.
We have women owned, we havedog friendly. You know, there's
all these different attributes that you canadd. You can also add categories to
your business, so you know,for example, if an Italian restaurant has
(20:07):
like they show sports, they havelike a bar that like a sports bar
and an Italian restaurant. People,you can claim your business as an Italian
restaurant and a sports bar, soyou can reach different demographics that are searching,
Hey I want to watch the gametonight. That'll pop up for people
who are searching for sports bars,or hey, I want an Italian dinner.
(20:29):
You know it reach different reaches,different demographics. You can also upload
your more information about the business owner, more information about your business, and
it's just keywords that you're putting onyour page allow people, allow people to
search for you more frequently. Sousing keywords, yeah, so using keywords
in your page so and those areall free for people to do when you
(20:51):
claim your page. To Matt's earlierpoint, I guess the monetization strategy of
Yelpa's ads, yeah yeah, yeah, entirely or can you be can you
pay to be seen? I guessit is still kind of the same concept
for an ad, but be seenfirst on the top of the page or
like a sponsored listing. Or whatever. There are sponsored listings, and I
(21:11):
honestly I don't know enough about thatworld. But I do know that like
ads and like some sometimes there willbe like a sponsored business when you search
for things. But I don't knowenough about that world speak about it.
That's a typical like entrepreneur like flufflego, like how are you making money?
Like we don't expect you to knowthat? And of course, of
(21:33):
course not what are some of thisis a little sensitive, maybe nervous.
I don't I don't want to likesound critical because I don't even know anything
of context. Yeah, Like yearsago, I saw like a friend of
a friend post he owns like arestaurant or a bar, and he was
just like, oh, yelp islike blackmailing me. And I was just
like what, why would he saythat? It sounds like yelp is very
(21:57):
democratic? Yeah. Yeah. Arethere like business businesses that are critical or
that are hesitant to use for certainreasons? Yeah? Absolutely. I think
I think a lot of people arevery hesitant to use review platforms in general.
I mean, like I was sayingbefore, your business owners, your
(22:18):
business is your baby. It's hardto get critical reviews. Um. But
no there's no way for you helpto remove reviews or only be posting the
negative reviews, and so I thinkthere's a lot of misconceptions and misinformation out
there too, but I think it'sjust so important. I mean, we
did a survey in twenty twenty two, and I'm forgetting like the exact statistics
of it. But obviously ten yearsago, people weren't online as much as
(22:41):
they are now, and now peopleare turning online more frequently and trusting reviews.
I mean social proof, yes,is the reviews. I look at
reviews every when I'm buying a bathingsuit or you know, like anything,
and reviews are as trusted as areview from a friend or family member.
(23:03):
Now, so an online review isas trusted as from somebody you've met.
And so I think people are hesitantto create Yelp profiles or so or review
pages because they think they're going toget all these critical reviews. But in
reality, like I said, wehave more five star reviews than one,
two and three star reviews combined.So if you're not using, you know,
(23:29):
you're missing out on that opportunity toget those positive reviews on Yelp.
If you're not creating a page orpeople are gonna I mean, like I
said, as a consumer, Ican create a page, you know anyway,
So people are any going to createa page anyways if they have something
to say. Yeah, So itsounds like maybe more fear of bad reviews,
(23:52):
maybe which might indicate that they didn'thave a great service. Maybe.
I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was gonna say the
same thing, like I if I'ma small business owner and I have a
restaurant or something similar to that,I'm looking at this as more of a
marketing tool rather than a review tool. And I want to be seen because
I look, people are coming tomy restaurant. It's gonna this will allow
(24:15):
me to be held to a higherstandard. I think you have to change
the mindset and nothing comes back tothe entrepreneurial journey and also the experience and
that you're dealing with a lot.You see that every day. You're dealing
with the business owners who are entrepreneurs, and you have to try and I'm
assuming have to try and convince themto change their mindset, Like why would
(24:37):
I want to be on Yelp,especially an older demographic that's not necessarily an
entire entirely comfortable or acclimated to thedigital space. You know, why is
it necessary to get on yelp?Why is it necessary to be online?
Why is it necessary to be reviewed? And why is it necessary to claim
(24:59):
a page and push this? Iguess we, for lack of better terms,
seo on yelp. Yeah right,So how are you dealing with that
every day? What do you doevery day? What's your day to day
like? Are you trying to convincesmall business owners? Are you trying to
attract more business owners? What's yourwhat's your day life? Yeah? So
I kind of operate in my ownlittle world here. Um, my department
(25:22):
is very different from other departments andYelp, and we partner with businesses is
in a very different way. Soa part of my job is definitely like
educating people, trying to get ridof those not get rid of, but
like just educate people about maybe themisconceptions that they have. But a lot
of what I do is partnering withbusiness owners. We want to help business
(25:44):
owners. All the resources that Ioffer for business owners are completely free.
We partner with businesses to help bringpeople to their grand openings or help bring
people into their restaurant space to highlightwhat they what they want to showcase at
their restaurant or not just restaurant Yelp. That's another misconception is that Yelp is
only for restaurants, but it's forall businesses. But m yeah, I
(26:07):
do. I run our social mediaaccount. I'm building our community of the
Yelp elate squad, hosting events forthem, interacting with them on the platform.
So my role is very different thanyou know other people within the Yelp
company, but I do part ofmy role is that education portion and trying
to talk to people about Yelp andalso getting curious about I'm always curious to
(26:30):
hear what people have to say aboutit and wanting to know why are you
hesitant about Yelp? What like tryingto get to the bottom of what are
the negative negative negativity? A lotof people just assume people are going online
to share a negative experience. Ithink it would be the number one How
do you counter that personally? What'syour approach? I mean saying what I've
(26:51):
said, like we have more fivestar reviews than one, two and three
star reviews. People are turning online, like the people are going to review
businesses anyway. And it's like wewere talking about that social currency, like
it's negative reviews or critical reviews.I don't want to even say negative,
Like critical reviews build consumer trust withinyour business, and you're not going to
(27:12):
please everyone. And I am apeople pleaser my whole life and want I
want to please everyone all the time. How was that received by these owners,
these business owners? Yeah, ifI'm a CPA firm or HVAC company
here locally and I'm just reluctant toget on there for that reason, Yeah,
(27:33):
you okay, you've You've maybe giventhat pitch, that spiel um,
and Okay, maybe I'm less reticentto do it. Maybe I'm going to
jump on board or I guess howwas that received that message or that does
it change a lot of minds?Yeah, it's received pretty well. And
but I think the more impact thatI have in my role is we bring
(27:59):
people into business. So for example, we are we partnered with like a
an eyebrow waxing studio recently and theywere celebrating their five year anniversary and they
were like, it's arrow edge toshout them out. They're amazing, And
they were like, hey, we'rehaving a five year anniversary. We'd love
to get some folks like in thelike some new people in the doors to
kind of experience have it an experiencehere. And I'm able to bring the
(28:23):
people from our yelped community and ouryelp Elite squad into that business to kind
of showcase what they're known for.So that's kind of more my role.
And I think once businesses see andthat's totally free for businesses, and I
do all of the RSPP management,the marketing for those events, and like
we show up, I'm like,how many people do you want? I
(28:45):
can get them there. We showup, they show they show off their
business and showcase what they're known for. And I think seeing that and seeing
how many people hyper locally want tosupport local, want to spend their money
locally, want to help support theirsmall local business, that's what not changes
minds, but I think that's whatgets people on board, like, hey,
yelps an advocate for us. Theywant to support us, they want
(29:07):
to provide these resources for us.So I think that's more of what my
role showcases to business bringing into thespotlight. Yeah. Yeah, if I'm
a small business guy, I wantto jump into the spotlight. I want
to be seen. I want peopleto judge me. How are businesses getting
the opportunity to part partner with you? Then? So like arrow Edge,
(29:29):
like did they just reach out toyou and you're like, yeah, sure,
do you have a long queue todo partnerships? Does that work?
Actually that was a unique one.They reached out to me. Usually I'm
reaching out to businesses to see ifthey want a partner and m yeah,
but I love when businesses reach outto me. My job. Is there
typically like a long wait or dothey have to qualify somehow? Yeah?
(29:49):
We book a couple months in advance, so like if people wanted to partner
now, we would be booking intothe September time frame. But ready for
que four people? Yes, ohmy gosh. Yeah yeah so yeah cool.
Yeah. And that's also a freeservice. Yeah, totally free.
And it's cool because I, likeI said, I do all of the
(30:10):
rs VP management. So we havepeople sign up. I'm marketing it through
our newsletters, on our calendar,on our social media. I get all
the people there and then I meanit's much more than the business just showing
up and saying hey, this iswhat we do. But I can get
people into businesses and then have thatcreate this wonderful experience for people too.
That's so cool. I'm going totell my wife that you do this.
(30:32):
Yeah, that yelp offers this,right, she is not a founder,
but she's part of the founding teamof a new medspa. Oh yes,
and they're like just getting started andthey're kind of like, we got to
try and do this, we gottatry that, but like this is like
perfect for businesses like that. Wewould love to that's really cool. Yeah,
I was just you may have noticed. I'd probably looked distracted, but
(30:52):
I was looking at the Instagram profileand your social game is solid. Yeah,
it's great. Yeah, it's likereally good content. Its good engagement's
awesome, which is like unsurprising foryelp, right, but yeah, it's
good surprising for Karin. She's drivingyelp here. Yeah, hopefully that didn't
sound like a slight towards you,but that's the point of yelp. Right.
(31:14):
Yeah, Wow, like yelp actuallygets engages your best efforts. I'm
not gonna lie. You kind ofsurprised me. No, No, it's
great. It's really good content,and I'm seeing something like I just followed
it because I'm like, oh mygosh, there's good restaurants. Yeah.
Every time my wife and I goout, she's like, oh, I
have to I follow these like fewaccounts on Instagram and starts looking up restaurants.
(31:36):
But like you've got, yeah,a bunch right there. Yeah,
And all of our social media contentis free to We don't charge for people
to be featured, and a lotof times it's so I co run it
with Heather who's in Utah County,and my intern helps as well, and
um, yeah, so we featurebusinesses for free. We do a series
called hashtag Meet the Owner where weshowcase owners. We just highlighted Skillets,
(31:59):
which is some breakfast burrito place andthey're owners. Like, people love to
see the face behind businesses, andthat's what gets people coming back to businesses
as well, which is why ourevents are so fun because a lot of
times the business owner will be theresharing their story and then you know,
people within the Yelp community feel moreconnected to that business because they're hearing the
(32:19):
story behind the business and experiencing itfor themselves. And anyways, that's it's
a cool, it's been fun.How how could somebody who is familiar with
Yelp but not active on it,leverage it, like get the most out
of it, like a business owneror no, no, no, like
a consumer consumer. Yeah, becauselike like I said, I was on
(32:42):
Yelp every day last week literally justlike looking at restaurants and stuff. But
I don't go to it every day, Like it's usually if I'm looking for
something new, if I'm out oftown or traveling or whatever, Like,
how can I get more out ofit? What's the best way? Like
is social one of the best spacebecause there's I would assume so, because
there's always new content being pushed pushedout, But like, yeah, how
(33:07):
can I get the most out ofYeah, I mean there's a lot of
unknown. Like I don't think peoplerealize the extent that Yelp is a social
media platform, Like not only areyou sharing reviews and photos and then you
can add people on Yelp and youcan see your friends photos and your friends
reviews. We also have a spacecalled talk where people are like, Hey,
I'm looking for a new chiropractor,Like is there any anywhere? Like
(33:30):
I've looked kind of on Yelp reviews, but I'd love to hear like personal
experiences from people within the Yelp community. So there's like a whole chat space
too, m DMS compliments. Ohand I was going to say something else
and I'm totally blanking on it.Oh. We also have an events page
and businesses can post upcoming events thatthey have going on too, and we
(33:52):
host I host events. Um ourteam host events for the local community as
well every couple of months, justevents that are open to anybody with a
Yelp account. So if you havea Yelp account, you can come to
our events and sign up for them. So in May, we hosted an
event with UM a shaved ice placecalled Ocean Ice and anybody with the Yelp
(34:13):
account could come to that event andit was awesome. So yeah, do
Yelp users get like VIP access atthese events? Like do they get like,
hey, you're a subscribed Yelp user, you have the app, Like
you get a free snow cone?Like yeah like that. Yeah, So
for that particular event, everybody whoRSVP'd had to have a Yelp account,
(34:37):
So you have to have a Yelpaccount in order to attend this event,
and then you for that event.Yeah, everybody who RSVP'd got a free
shaved ice Socian ice and it wasawesome. Yeah. But then like obviously
I'm not like taking full of people. Not enough people know about it.
And that's part of my job too, is spreading the word about what we
do, because I don't think enoughpeople know about how we yeah, and
(35:00):
how involved we are in the community. And we love supporting community events too.
I mean, we're not just partneringwith businesses. We're partnering with We
partnered with mill Creek Common. Theyhad a Juneteenth festival last week, um,
and we partnered with them to kindof spread the word about that opportunity
too. So we love I mean, it's hyperlocal. We want to support
local communities and local community organizations inaddition to businesses as well. So yeah,
(35:25):
that's so cool. Yeah, let'spen aren't on the site not the
mobile adding adding people? Yeah,Craig No, And actually did notice that
there are sponsored results to top?Yeah, because I put in German Food
near me German food and then thetop was like a Maverick gas station.
(35:45):
How interesting under the sponsored results,But then it went to the German stuff
like Siegfriedsdale contestant and there was anotherone in farming is there one was Wellers
did Wellers Best. I think they'reGerman. I don't want to say that
and then not have that not beI don't correct, but they were on
one of our Oh that's another thingwe do too. They were on one
of our top foodless um last yearand we do. We released like Top
(36:08):
one hundred places to eat in theSouthwest. We do. We did Top
one hundred donuts in the US andFresh Donuts in Delhi. In Salt Lake
City was number twenty six, twentysix. N Yeah, have you ever
been there? Yeah, they're amazing, and you know it's so funny as
you like go there and it's tiny. It's tiny. It's not marketing like
there's not a big marketity sign oranything now, but there's always a line
(36:30):
around the building. Now so good. It was crazy the first time.
It's in seventeen south in State twentyseven. Set out to these guys.
Yeah, we went as well,this is like a family and that everyone
was like had like a couple ofkids, and yeah, the line in
the whole deal. It's so itwas so crazy. The first time I
(36:50):
went there, there was a familyin front of me, and they were
like, we haven't been here inso long. And the owners were working
the cash register. They were like, we haven't been here in so long.
I don't know if you remember us, but they were like, oh
yeah, and they knew the namesof all the kids and it had been
like years since they had been there. I was like, and then they
knew exactly what. Yes, literallyafter this, it's so good. The
(37:12):
line is always out the door,like a wrapped around the building. It's
crazy to Delhi too. Not justdonuts. I've never been called fresh don
they do. Yeah, they dohave a menu, but it's it's all
donuts. Wow. So and nowthat's that was an interesting kind of Yelp
check in where like hey, Utahkind of being represented. That was super
cool. But it's amazing to seethe way that the platform again kind of
(37:37):
helps and synergize with everything. Right, Like Yelp wants users, but in
order to get users, they're saying, look, here's the benefits of these
local businesses, which in turn createsmore users, et cetera, et cetera.
Like that's a really cool just feedbackloop right there that's been generated.
Yeah, and actually you just saidyou just use the word check in.
You were asking how you can utilizethe platform more as a consumer you and
(38:00):
there's check in offers that businesses canoffer. So we partner with Cool Roots
Coffee. I don't know if you'vebeen there, but they're amazing and if
you check in, you get acertain percentage off your order. Cool if
you check in on yelp. Sothen when you check in, there's this
is kind of the social component.People within your friends list can say,
oh, crin's at Roots Coffee andI wonder how hers you know, here's
(38:22):
a picture from it. I wonderhow experience was so and then when you
have enough check in offers, youcan become like the Duchess of Sugarhouse Coffee,
which I recently Yes, thank you, thank you. So there's it's
kind of like Game five. Yeah, yes, yeah, as you should
(38:42):
your royal lineage right there. Verycool, that's awesome. Yeah, I'm
interested in how people would get ahold of you, businesses, How would
they reach out to you had theyhad that one group the company got a
hold of you. Yeah, yeah, businesses reach out on our Instagram so
at yelp. Utah's how a lotof businesses I feel like that's just how
people communicate now, which is interesting. The world that we live in is
(39:05):
very interesting. But they can alsoreach out to me via email Salt Lake
City at yelp dot com, umand or on Yelp if you want to
do I would respond to that onthe Yelp platform, but I would say
Instagram is kind of our most popularvenue for reaching out or email. And
you have some events coming up atall? Yeah, yes, when are
(39:28):
they? When are they? Yeah? Or what are they? What are
they? And where? Yeah?We so these are we have events only
for our Yelpa lage squad coming up, but we're doing We're partnering with Pizza
Volta in Sugar House. We're partneringwith Nico Sushi and Raman in Kaysville.
So yeah, like I said,we highlight businesses from all over, it's
(39:49):
not just Salt Lake City proper.So UM excited for those events. We're
also partnering with um Slapfish, whichis a larger known name UM but they
recently did a menu, They redidtheir whole menu and they're trying to spread
the word about that, so we'repartnering with them too. So those are
kind of the events that wed.How often are you doing these events or
these partnerships? It depends. Imean this past month we had five events
(40:14):
I think, and um July wehave three, So we have at least
like two or three or four amonth, depends on the month. So
how would you what would you tellsmall business owners right now? Why?
What's what's the pitch sell them rightnow? From from the duchess, I'm
(40:36):
awesome. From no, I mean, I I don't think I'm just biased.
We have a really wonderful community withinthe ELP community. They are so
passionate about supporting local businesses and alsolove connecting with other foodies and other people
who have that same passion, andso our events are so much fun.
(40:59):
They bring such a great energy.People are returning to the businesses because they've
had this connection with the business owner, they've had this experience at this event.
We partnered with Brustillery last a coupleweeks ago, actually not last week,
a couple of weeks ago, whichis a festival that highlights and showcases
(41:20):
local breweries and distilleries, and oneof our one of the folks from mari
Yelpolie Squad, went to it metwith the business owner at Ogden's own distillery,
and then she was like, hey, I actually went up to Ogden
because I loved their distillery so much. I went up to Ogden from Salt
Lake to go check out their distillery. Like, people love supporting local and
(41:43):
are so passionate about getting to knowbusiness owners and supporting locals. So that's
I guess that's kind of my pitchin a roundabout way. But we have
just a really vibrant, beautiful communityhere and we want to help you.
We want to help business owners.We want to bring people into your business
and showcase and highlight what you're knownfor. Um and yeah, we love
(42:05):
to partner and I try to makeit easy for businesses too. I mean,
like I said, I'm doing themarketing and the RSPP management, and
we bring people to your business andyou get to show off what you do
and it's a lot of fun.And that's true for any market really,
not just you in Salt Lake.Yeah, but that can be YELP in
general. Yes, Yeah, wehave one of at least one of me
in every major city. I meanLa obviously has like four I think because
(42:28):
it's so big there, but there'sat least one community manager in every major
city in the US and Canada.Cool. Yeah, I want you to
fact check something for me. Iheard. I heard that there's going to
be a Yelp top five podcast studiosin Utah and it's like the pod mill
(42:49):
and then like way down the listis anything that like nobody can even recall
by name someone. We haven't releasedthat to the public yet. Shoot,
we're actually not sorry, Oh Ishouldn't say it an yet. Very thoughtful.
Yeah, thank you very much.Podmail right, that's right on the
fly. That was pretty good.That was clever. Thank you. Well,
(43:12):
Yelp is awesome. That's my takeawayfrom US. I haven't seen any
downsides. No Yelp blackmailing. Juststep your game up, you don't like
Yeah exactly. Yeah, yeah that'swhat I took. Yeah, like,
you probably need to work on yourservice. Yeah, maybe not put band
aids in the food anymore. Tom, come on, great about Thank you
(43:36):
so very much. This was amazing. Thank you, This is fun.
Thank you appreciate it. George
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