Photo credit: cogdogblog (Flickr)
Recently a client came to us asking for help in integrating their plentiful Yelp reviews with their soon-to-be-public Facebook Page. Sitewire’s technical team was happy to provide some guidance on combining the reviews from their multiple locations into one source and adding a tab to their FB page, but in the interest of saving time and headaches on their side, they decided to task us with this never-before-seen application. We gladly accepted the challenge and the results are extremely impressive. And I’m not the only one that thinks so. Both the client and Yelp are more than satisfied with the results, and we can see this being an application that anyone with Yelp reviews will want to incorporate into their Facebook Page. Curious? Check out The Capital Grille Yelp App.
Facebook has always been pushing the envelope when it comes to integrating multiple social media platforms, from Tweets going directly to your Facebook wall, to sharing videos from YouTube directly to Facebook as a post or message, to the development of Facebook Connect, allowing anyone with a website to have their content shared by Facebook users. It seemed almost ludicrous that a Yelp/Facebook partnership had not already been developed. And yes, Yelp is going down the path of incorporating Facebook Connect on their business’ pages, not just for Yelpers leaving reviews; but there’s all this valuable content on Yelp that would make so much sense on a Facebook Page! How could a business not want their Yelp reviews featured on their Facebook Page? Though I was incredibly surprised that this application didn’t already exist, I was even more excited to be able to work with a client that wanted to take the risk and include all their reviews, 1 star to 5 stars, on what’s become one of the most important web properties a business could have. We couldn’t wait to get started.
I think the main challenge that many have found when incorporating their Yelp Profiles into their Facebook Page, is that Yelp is still set up for the small, local business. They haven’t yet moved down a path of making it easy for owners of chains or multi-location businesses to gather all their Yelp content together in one place, or one API. But I have to hand it to our ever-resourceful and inventive Development team. They accepted the challenge, plus several others, and were able to seamlessly incorporate the reviews from 40 different profiles into one feed, even including modifications to identify the source of the individual reviews. The tab represents the disparate regions and locations as a unified brand, a first for all of Yelp’s platforms.
Though there are many upgrades and modifications that will be coming out of Sitewire for this application in the coming weeks and months, having this 1.0 version live has been the highlight of my week. I love working with clients that are just as excited to chart new territory as Sitewire is, and when they appreciate the need for transparency that goes along with working in this space, it’s even more satisfying. So now the question is, what’s next? What’s the next frontier? Is there an untapped space for integrating location-based services (LBS) with Facebook? What about tapping into our good old fashioned Search Engine maps and any one of the social platforms that revolve around location? What two great flavors are you hoping taste great together?
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You know, I was looking for this very thing for one of my clients. Is this application available for download somewhere? (If so email me, I’m interested… I can’t believe it didn’t exist before either. Go you!)
Nicole – Unfortunately no. The app has to be developed individually on our side. But we may be able to work with you to get it created for your client. Email me!