What’s your education like-your school or degree? I am a medical assistant and a personal trainer and Pilates instructor. What do you do besides being a Yelp Elite? In this wide-ranging interview, Barker talks about her experience writing reviews for Yelp and discusses the social media platform from the point of view of both its end-users and the businesses that are an integral part of the mix. With 137 reviews and 234 “friends” to her credit as of November 21, 2014, Barker knows a thing or two about what it takes to reach the top echelons of Yelp’s membership. Hollywood resident Sondra Barker has been a Yelp reviewer for about half a dozen years and a member of Yelp’s Elite Squad since 2013. Yelp’s “meet” strategy is a rather brilliant mix of social media and amateur business “journalism.” The parties are organized by Yelp community managers, almost all of whom are recruited from the ranks of the Elite Squad and who encourage reviewers by commenting on their reviews in message-board discussions. They get invited to special events-offline gatherings where they bond with each other over food, drinks, music or art. If anything, Yelp has an adversarial relationship with the vast majority of businesses that Yelp reviewers write about.Īmong Yelp reviewers, there’s a category known as the Yelp “Elite Squad.” These are reviewers who have reached a certain stage in their critiques of businesses that makes them special to Yelp-and to other reviewers. Rather, Yelp caters primarily to the end-users of businesses-those who write reviews about businesses ranging from restaurants to auto mechanics. The paradox of this San Francisco-based social media company’s success is that it’s not known for its utility to businesses per se. In the world of social media that impacts businesses, however, one platform stands out-Yelp. There’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and a whole host of social media strategies that are especially helpful to those who know how to work them. Social media allows anybody and everybody to promote themselves these days.
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