An Instagram Influencer Gave a Bad Yelp Review to a Restaurant That Wouldn’t Accept “Likes” as Payment

This “influencer” culture is really pretty confusing, and I’m not sure I understand it completely.

Or that I want to understand it.

And here’s another perfect example of why I feel that way (and maybe why you do, too).

A Yelp reviewer who claims to have over 11,000 Instagram followers (is that even impressive?) wrote a negative restaurant review because the establishment wouldn’t give them free food or drinks.

Yelper is mad because restaurant didn’t them free meal in exchange for potential IG exposure from trashy

Does that sound like an entitled person, or am I completely crazy and living in an alternate universe?

The person said in the review that they thought the food and the service was great but ultimately a 1-star review was warranted because, “I thought she would be greatful [sic] for the free advertising but when the check came there was literally no discount at all. I thought at least one of the entrees would be taken off but they didn’t even take off the calamari or even the drinks!”

Photo Credit: Pixabay

The review was posted on Reddit (it looks like it’s been taken down from Yelp) and other Redditors offered up their own stories in response.

“I work at a hotel near Disneyworld, where rooms can reach 300+/night. It shames me how much we comp and how much ass we kiss for bloggers, “influencers” (whatever the fuck that is), social media personalities, etc., only to have the same losers condescend and treat like shit the employees of the hotel. They are a blight.”

“I also work at a hotel where the rates are 300+/night. We tell self-described “influencers” to get fucked.”

“Just so you know, big thing now is to try to pass yourself as an influencer to get discounts and free stuff. You don’t even really need to be one; you just need to tell people you are. Mikey Chen from Strictly Dumpling admits that even before he became a blogger, he’d hound hotels and airlines to get a discount and exploit his status as an influencer.”

Yikes. Not cool.

Do you have any personal stories similar to this while dealing with a so-called “influencer”? If so, please share them in the comments so we can all vent together.

The post An Instagram Influencer Gave a Bad Yelp Review to a Restaurant That Wouldn’t Accept “Likes” as Payment appeared first on UberFacts.

This Restaurant Owner Asks Customers for 1-Star Reviews to Beat the Yelp System

It’s not a huge secret that customer review sites like Yelp aren’t exactly objective or fair. So a chef in California decided to try to beat the system by asking his customers to leave him 1-star reviews on Yelp. Yes, you read that right.

Italian-born Davide Cerretini owns Botto Bistro, an Italian restaurant in the Bay Area. Davide was an early adopter of Yelp, which was launched in 2004, and he’s well aware of how much a Yelp rating can impact a business.

A half-star difference in a restaurant’s Yelp rating can increase peak-hours foot traffic by as much as 19%, HuffPost reports.

The Village Idiot – weekly update.www.davidecerretini.comI have been given the gift of these treasures and I feel…

Posted by Chef Davide Cerretini on Wednesday, August 8, 2018

But it’s not that simple. Davide tells The Hustle that, after opening Botto Bistro, Yelp salespeople tried hard to convince him to buy ads. When he turned them down, 5-star reviews were removed from his page.

“Yelp was manipulating reviews and hoping I would pay a protection fee. I didn’t come to America and work for 25 years to be extorted by some idiot in Silicon Valley,” he said.

Desperate to succeed on Yelp, Davide resorted to writing his own 5-star reviews to replace the ones that Yelp had removed. He also wrote critical reviews of neighboring restaurants.

“I wasn’t a good guy,” he admitted.

Posted by Chef Davide Cerretini on Saturday, June 23, 2018

The ensuing months brought more frustrations with Yelp. Davide realized that the website was “completely controlling [his] reputation,” and it gave him an idea.

“What if I don’t give a shit about reputation? What if I take away their power by actually making it worse?” he wondered.

So, he offered customers a discount on pizza for giving him a 1-star review on Yelp.

His page soon filled with 1-star reviews… while his restaurant filled with customers. His idea worked — he had outsmarted Yelp, and people loved it.

Photo Credit: Botto Bistro

“It wasn’t about the discount, or the pizza, or even the reviews,” he says. “It was about the general public saying enough is enough. They no longer wanted to be surrounded by Yelpers’ bullshit.”

Botto Bistro became the worst-rated restaurant on Yelp, and business is booming.

In fact, this is what they say on their website:

“We made it! It’s official, Botto Bistro is the worst restaurant ever on Yelp and in Yelp’s world.
We are the only One star restaurant on Yelp, and our goal is finally reached!
Get an immediate 50% OFF any pizza for your One star review.
Take a quick screenshot to show it to us, as Yelp’s special Botto team removes our reviews as fast as possible. Busy people…so far they removed just about 3,000 of Botto’s one star reviews.
How cute and adorable is that? They are busy people thanks to us.”

FIGHT THE POWER!

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