I recently read an amazing story about a student who was towed by a towing firm in Michigan. The student started a Facebook page called Kalamazoo Residents Against T&J Towing and 11,000+ people have subscribed. While towing companies probably don't have many "fans" on facebook, 11,000 detractors is a huge number.

Only around 75,000 people live in Kalamazoo. While I'm sure many of the subscribers are joining just for fun, when one out of every 7 residents of a town signs up to a group that is against your business - you may as well stick a fork in your operations. You're all done.

The owner's response has been to sue the student for $750,000. Bad move. It looks like a class action countersuit is underway.

T & J Towing's BBB Rating

T & J Towing has a BBB rating of "F". You might expect that many towing companies have unhappy dealings with the public and as a result have very poor grades due to a lot of complaints - justified or not. This is only partially true. While there are quite a few towing companies with "F" BBB ratings, there are many with a grade of B or higher. T&J Towing has chosen not to become a member of the BBB and is apparently unresponsive to many complaints.

T & J Towing Local Pages

T & J Towing hasn't claimed any of their local pages and has downright incendiary photos posted on Yahoo Local Search. Here is a sample of their presence with local business directories:

• Google Maps (Google Places) - 72 reviews - almost all are 1 star reviews of people with horrible stories about the business.
• Yahoo Local - 37 1 star ratings, and a photo of Hitler in the three photos posted by an unhappy reviewer. Hitler is supposed to be representative of the business owner.
• Yelp - 9 total 1 star reviews, 4 of which have been filtered out.

From the vast amount of reviews that I have read, along with the BBB rating of "F", there are some problems at T & J towing. At the very least there are major customer service issues. There may also be some ethical issues with business practices.

How Does This Help Me Market My Denver Small Business?

There are a number of lessons to be learned for Denver Small Businesses from this case study. This towing company isn't a large company like Apple or Microsoft which has thousands of users campaigning against them - this is a local small business. In the age of social media, if you don't manage your services and your brand properly, bad things can happen. Here's what you can do as a small business owner to avoid big time issues.

Changes are coming to Yelp. In a previous blog post, I discussed the problems that Yelp was encountering with small businesses. There were accusations that Yelp employees where basically extorting local businesses into advertising in order to get better reviews or eliminate bad reviews.

Over at the Duct Tape Marketing Blog, John Jantsch recently had a chance to speak with the business outreach manager at Yelp. The most significant changes were that Yelp will now allow small business owners to see filtered reviews. Yelp has an algorithm to fight “review spam” – and it will automatically not show reviews of a small business that appear to be either positive review spam or negative review spam. In the past, reviews would just disappear from a small business listing. Now small business owners have the ability to see the reviews that have been filtered out.

Another change is that small business owners can no longer move their “favorite reviews” (best reviews) to the top of their small business listing on Yelp.

For the complete list of changes at Yelp – check out this blog post from the Yelp Official Blog.

How Does This Help Me Market My Denver Small Business?

If you’re looking to market your Denver Small business, you really need to get as much exposure on as many directories as possible. This includes the local search areas for Bing, Google, and Yahoo – along with small business listing sites like Yelp.com and CitySearch.com. The recent accusations of extortion of Yelp can only help to ensure that the website owners are more transparent with their advertising and filtering processes.

If you do get your Denver small business listed on these sites, you need to pay very close attention to your reviews. Make sure that the reviews are truthful and reasonable. Follow up with the website if it appears a competitor or someone with an ax to grind is deliberately trying to damage the reputation of your Denver small business.

In a previous blog post about Denver restaurant marketing, I covered Yelp - and recommended that Denver restaurant businesses needed to use Yelp to help promote their restaurant. Yelp isn't limited to just restaurants - and I recommend that most Denver small businesses looking to promote their business further explore Yelp.

What is Loopt?

Screenshot of Loopt.com home page

From the Loopt.com "What is Loopt?" Page:

Loopt helps to keep friends in touch via a mobile phone. What is particularly interesting is that according to a recent TechCrunch article, Loopt is positioning itself to be a direct competitor with Yelp. Reviews of restaurants, bars, and other local establishments are now a key part of Loopt. A particularly interesting facet of Loopt is that reviews aren't always anonymous - users of Loopt see these reviews that have been contributed by their friends through Loopt.

How Does this Help Me Market My Denver Small Business?

Denver small business owners - especially restaurant owners and retail outlets - need to pay close attention. Loopt has approximately 3 million users according to the TechCrunch article - a signifcant number. Reviewing what is said on Loopt to improve your service offerings and to be certain that your business is being fairly represented would be wise.

This is the second in a two part post about how Denver Restaurants can improve their marketing efforts in a down economy. Yesterday's Denver Restaurant Marketing Post discussed how restaurant visits are down from last year and how mobile advertising can be used to bring in more diners to Denver Restaurants. Today's blog post discusses how Denver Restaurant owners can make sure that their restaurants are listed in local search directories in order to bring in more Denver Diners.

Denver Restaurants and Local Search

Local Search is already a crucial tool in marketing Denver Restaurants. In most cases, it is free, and will bring higher visibility to your website. I'm going to describe in detail one of the most important local search websites - Yelp. At the end of this post I'll describe other local search listing sites you should also explore.

Yelp

Yelp is a website that assists people in finding local goods and services. From their website, Yelp was founded to "help people find great local businesses like dentists, hair stylists and mechanics". So - the Denver Yelp page isn't just limited to restaurants, but they do a fantastic, in-depth job with restaurants. Yelp is a very large site which receives around 25 million visits each month. If you want to get more visibility for your Denver small business, you need to explore Yelp.

The Yelp.com page for the Wynkoop Brewery

The photo above is a screenshot of the Yelp listing for the Wynkoop Brewing Company. The listing is crafted around the perspective of someone looking for a place to grab a bite to eat or drink while in Lodo. Helpful information includes the overall rating from reviewers, photos of the restaurant, a map, reviewer comments, and important restaurant related information (delivery, wheelchair accessible, parking, etc.). The bottom line is that Yelp is a valuable resource for anyone trying to evaluate which Denver restaurant they want to visit.

Denver Restaurants on Yelp

Once you control your own Denver restaurant listing on Yelp, you'll be able to promote your restaurant in a variety of ways. Yelp has a wide array of tools for small business owners. Once you get signed up, you'll be able to promote your restaurant. You'll be able to:

• Post accurate information about your restaurant
• Post photos and information about upcoming events
• See how many people are visiting your business page on Yelp
• Communicate with your diners both publicly and privately

You may wish to also let your frequent diners know about Yelp so that they can help spread the word about your Denver Restaurant and why they keep coming back. Positive reviews in Yelp can obviously assist in bringing new diners through the doors.

Yelp Denver Restaurant Paid Advertising

Due to the large amount of traffic, Yelp may also be an advertising opportunity for Denver restaurants. They mention that packages range between $300 and $1000 per month (as of December 2009). Restaurant ads will appear above Yelp search results and on the pages of similar business pages.

Other Listings

Below is a list of other local search and online city guides that you should consider exploration for your Denver restaurant (or small business):

• Yelp.com
• Citysearch.com
• InsiderPages.com
• SuperPages.com
• YellowPages.com
• Angie's List (best for contractors)
• Bing Local Listings
• Google Local Business Center
• Yahoo Local

How Does this Help Me Market My Denver Small Business?

While this post is obviously aimed towards Denver Restaurant owners, all Denver Small Businesses should take advantages of local search directories, including Yelp. Small business owners in Denver metro need to focus on establishing and controlling their own listings within these local search directories. Local listings give Denver small business owners a way to list their businesses on the Internet at no cost. Small Businesses can upload photos, provide contact information, and link back to the main business website.