Stop Yelping About User-Generated Content and Start Leveraging It

Rewind a few years. Ask restaurant owners what they believe user-generated content is, and you’d likely get two similar, but polar opposite answers – groans and grumbles or enthusiastic endorsements of Yelp, the pioneer crowd-sourced review platform. While the Yelp platform has expanded and shifted since the early days, it was without a doubt, a make or break tool for restaurateurs and consumers alike.Today’s landscape is much broader. Social media is the single most common form of marketing done by restaurants, followed closely by online listings, customer reviews, and local SEO. Harness its collective power, and you can easily bring your bottom line from a simmer to a healthy boil. 

First, it may be helpful to refresh everyone’s understanding of user-generated content (UGC). UGC is the global name for the different types of posts that are written and/or produced by consumers, rather than representatives from the brand or its agency. Put more simply, UGC is content shared…