Recently, I was in a consultation with someone about their services when they opened up Facebook and asked me to sign in and “Like” their page during the meeting! I hadn’t even hired them for their services and they already expected me to endorse their services!  I was so turned off by this practice that I have decided that I will not work with them at all. Further investigation reveals a Yelp page for that business that is filled with glowing reviews mixed in with some very scathing reviews that mention the pressure clients get from them to write favorable reviews on Yelp.

In light of recent articles about businesses paying for Yelp reviews, I cannot help but comment on the increasing requests I am getting lately to “Like” someone on Facebook, or to write a Yelp review for them.  While businesses can benefit from positive reviews, readers need to take them with a grain of salt given the manipulation of them on the part of businesses. In addition, businesses need to be careful not to alienate potential or current customers by pressuring them to write reviews or interact with them on social media sites.

While I can understand why businesses want good reviews, they need to be careful about how they go about getting them. Unless a business owner is sure that the client is satisfied, they may actually want to avoid calling attention to their Yelp or social media profile pages. Furthermore, they would definitely want to take steps to keep unhappy clients from lashing out anonymously as well.

Since consumers are still learning how to navigate social media and online review sites, there needs to be a discussion on what to do if they are asked for a like or favorable review online. I would recommend the following:

• If you do not want to like a company or write a review, simply state that you do not endorse companies online and that prefer to use your account for personal use only. You can also say that you do not have a Yelp, Facebook, Google Plus account, but that may not be an option for the very honest types if, in fact, they do.
• If you really are put in an uncomfortable position, you can always “like” a company or write a review and then remove it later.  
• A third option is to tell the individual requesting a yelp review that Yelp filters all your reviews (perhaps because you seldom write them), which makes them less worthy for businesses.

At the end of the day, business owners, who are bullies, need to realize that insisting on “likes” doesn’t make people actually like you.