DailyFranchiseNews.com

Social Media Tip of the Day (Sort Of)

When determining what restaurant to dine at or what boutique to shop at, many individuals surf straight over to Yelp to read what their peers have to say. But what if you’re the owner of one of those restaurants or boutiques? When do you get your say? According to Yelp and the New York Times, you’ll have that opportunity next week.

This is a big change for the site, which has until now steadfastly refused to give businesses significant access to its pages. As Yelp has become more important in major American cities, its relationship with small businesses has become more contentious. Particularly in San Francisco, where the company started in 2004, Yelp has angered some small businesses because it has not allowed them to respond to reviews, as TripAdvisor and other review sites do. Yelp requests that business owners use the public comments to correct inaccuracies, provide their side of a story or explain how they have fixed a problem. They are not supposed to use comments to advertise or make personal attacks. Yelp will not screen comments before they are published, but users will be able to flag inappropriate comments for review by Yelp’s customer service team.

As one of the first social media innovators, Yelp has its fair share of fans as well as foes. What do you think about this new development? The DFN Team would love to hear your thoughts!

Social Media Tip of the Day

Now that we're living in a 140-character world, brevity is a virtue. Unfortunately, most website addresses clock in close to or over that number, leaving little to no room for commentary. If you have a link to share, take a look at this brief yet informative posting from Lou Page about how to share that site without wasting valuable characters in the process.

Social Media Tip of the Day

Just because social media works extremely well for one company doesn't mean it will be a successful approach for every concept under the sun. A hot topic at this year's Web 2.0 Expo, see if social media is the direction you should (or shouldn't) be taking with your business here.

Social Media Tip of the Day

Ever wonder who's utilizing the top social media sites? Knowing who's out there is important so check out the breakdown of four popular sites here.

Social Media Tip of the Day

Everyone seems to be on Twitter these days, including reporters, editors, producers and bloggers looking for interesting topics to cover. If you do decide to TwitPitch an idea, here are a few tips courtesy of PR Couture:

1. Avoid all caps. It's the equivalent of yelling...and it's not attractive.

2. Don’t use "net-speak" (using numerals instead of words, etc.). Send info through a link instead.

3. Don’t pitch and ditch. Keep monitoring your @replies and direct messages after you pitch; it's a good way to stay on someone's radar for future opportunities.

Social Media Tip of the Day

Is your company on Twitter? Great, but be careful! If you only tweet about your concept and ignore everything else going on around you, you won’t attract many followers. Follow, retweet and direct message others who have posted interesting comments and your Twitter posse (or Twosse as they say in the Twitterverse) will grow!

Introducing DailyFranchiseNews’ Social Media Tip of the Day!

Since launching DailyFranchiseNews nearly three years ago, the social media landscape has changed considerably and this blogger’s inbox is always bursting with requests from franchisors, franchisees and public relations firms asking how their concept can be featured on this site. Not all pitches are created equal, however, and the DFN team can speak from experience when they say there is a right way and a wrong way to approach a blogger. Here’s our first tip on how to do so correctly:

Don’t just blindly copy and paste press releases unless the blogger explicitly requests them – it’s so impersonal and a major peeve of many in the blogosphere; in fact, doing so could hurt your chances of EVER being featured on that particular site.