some small business owners are up in arms over the impact of negative customer reviews on yelp. we talked to owners who have had success on the review site and those who feel they have been treated unfairly. plus, what you need to know about connecting with your customers through instagram. that's all coming up next on "your business." small businesses are revitalizing the economy, and american express open is here to help. that's why we are proud to

present "your business" on msnbc. ♪ hi there, everyone, i'm jj ramberg, and welcome to "your business," the show dedicated to giving you tips and advice to help your small business grow. negative consumer comments on a review site can be a nightmare for a small business to overcome. that's why a number of businesses are up in arms with reviews they've received on the site yelp. some are raising questions about whether yelp is treating them fairly. >> customer who is satisfied with my service asked me if i had a yelp page because she was very eager to write me a review, and i gave her the same answer i gave my friend, what the hell is yelp? >> a new york city-based

locksmith. when he first opened lock busters, he was unaware of yelp. >> people would call me, did you know you were highly regarded on yelp? my answer was, no, because i couldn't afford a smartphone and didn't have a laptop. >> today, he credits much of his six-figure income and rapidly expanding business to that online review site. >> yelp pretty much catapulted things to the stratosphere, up to the point now i'm franchising, let's put it that way. >> with so many consumer review sites out there, it's hard for a small business owner to keep track, and as we discovered, some serious questions have been raised about how yelp solicits advertising from the small businesses on their site. >> to be perfectly honest, we didn't really know about yelp before we got into this business. >> kelly calandro and her husband matthew recently opened a modest-priced italian restaurant in their suburban

hometown of shelton, connecticut. like jay, kelly and matthew at first knew very little about yelp. they were proud to see their customers' four and five-star revi reviews far outnumbered the negives. unlike jay, however, kelly and matthew chose not to buy advertising on the yelp site, despite what they say was a barrage of sales calls. >> finally after, i don't know, the fourth, fifth, or sixth time they called, we said please, stop calling. we have a lot going on and we're not going to do it, end of story. >> but it wasn't the end of story. according to the calandros, shortly after rejecting yelp's ad package, next they knew many of the positive reviews were filtered off their page. is there a connection? yelp says no. their computer system is fully automated and cannot be fiddled with by everyone, but for the restaurant, their overall

ratings had plummeted and many of their new out of town customers stopped showing up. >> the positive reviews would come off, leaving the mediocre or not so great reviews. >> peter is the owner of a business and said he found himself in a similar situation when it appeared to him that all of his positives were dropping off the main yelp page, leaving only the negatives. >> the problem with yelp has been that yelp has distorted and suppressed all of the positive reviews. >> yelp acknowledges that it filters reviews to keep out the phoney ones and the filter isn't perfect. they told us the filter sometimes catches legitimate reviews, but it's an automated system. >> this appears right below our company name. it's very damaging. it costs us a great deal of money. >> while his company has been in business for more than 60 years, has a staff of experienced

craftspeople restoring museum antiques and buildings such as grand central station, you would never know this by just reading the two-star main yelp page. >> having a reputation trashed after 25 years of work, it's an awful thing. >> more importantly, you would never know that his company also received eight five star and two four-star reviews. that's because, according to peter, the yelp review algorithm removed them from his main page and placed them on a difficult to find page. >> they ruined our reputation saying we're a one or two-star company by hiding 75% of the reviews, which would make us four stars. >> there's no other way to put it, this sucks, because this is a situation you did not create, don't have time for or resources for. >> brandon mendleson is a social media critic and expert at helping nontech businesses

navigate the web. despite the several examples of companies that do not pay yelp for advertising, brandon identified cases he believes yelp deliberately filtered out positive reviews in order to sell ads. >> those reviews vanish and there's a call. >> maybe they insinuated maybe some of these bad reviews might disappear and the good reviews might stick. >> and they'll help direct more traffic to your site and get you more positive reviews. >> implicit if you don't, we're not going to fix this and you're going to be stuck, and this happens time after time after time. you can go all across the country and hear the same story repeatedly. >> on your side story involving a local business and the website yelp. >> local business owner calls a review company's practices unfair. >> reports on controversy over the company's alleged sales techniques. >> in fact, the ftc has recorded well over 600 business complaints about yelp.

many following this same pattern, and in california, a class action lawsuit was filed against yelp, listing many of these same issues. the suit was dismissed based on a law which says operators of interactive internet sites are immune from lawsuits over content. as a result, the question of how yelp selects or filters customer reviews was never fully examined. >> yelp will say or make the argument we're a neutral site. i think there's more than enough stories out there of people getting that mysterious phone call of, hey, we can make those good reviews reappear if you give us money, to suggest they are not neutral. >> yelp denies making any offers like this, and while we've heard many allegations, we have not found conclusive evidence, nor legal judgments that they say do. furthermore, yelp denies there's any connection between the ad sales and the filter process. >> we don't punish businesses

that choose not to advertise. it's important to make that clear. we keep reviews and advertising separate at yelp. it's like a separation between church and state, if you will. >> darnell holloway is the local manager of business outreach. in addition to yelp's clearcut denials, he's been hosting small business town hall meetings like this to answer questions about the site and its policy for filtering reviews. many small business owners like matthew and kelly remain unconvin unconvinced. >> if you're making a living on advertising sales for the people you're reviewing, there's an inherent conflict of interest there. >> these are customers leaving thoughts about us, good, bad, indifferent, there's a mix, we're fine with that. we want it to be a accurate representation. >> what they did was to take their case to the media. >> these bigger companies that come in and bully the smaller family-owned businesses. >> and today, if you visit their

yelp page, you'll find that they are listed with a four-star rating and they still aren't paying for advertising. we asked yelp about this, and they say maybe the publicity got their customers engaged, but there was no change in the automated yelp algorithm. fairly or unfairly, the effect that a negative write-up on a review site like yelp can have is potentially devastating for a company's bottom line. nick marsh is the founder of growth point restaurants, an investment fund focusing on the restaurant business and john taffer is the host of "bar rescue." great to see both of you guys. >> hi, jj, hi, nick. >> both of you guys work with bars and restaurants. nick, you run a restaurant right now called chopped. yelp is a big deal for companies like yours, restaurants and bars. what do you do if you start

getting negative reviews and you know people like your restaurant? >> absolutely, jj, as i was watching that piece, not to be insensitive, i'm thinking as i'm sure you say to your 5 year old on a regular basis, life's not fair and we have to just deal with it. there's certainly some things that are frustrating and times you're missing some reviews, but i think the best thing to do is try to use the feedback in a positive way, reach out to people if there is a problem, and use it to make your business better when you can. >> so in what way, john, have you worked with people who have dealt with this issue? >> we have. and what nick says is right, life is unfair, but people can get assassinated on facebook, assassinated on twitter, so we live in this internet environment where people can assassinate us and get away with it. one, i think we have to keep the media pressure on like you're doing, jj, that will keep yelp, hopefully, performing on a straight and narrow, but i agree with what nick says. a, we have to learn from it. b, somebody has to write a

negative comment for that negative comment to appear. nobody suggests they are fraudulent, so we still have to manage our business one customer at a time, right? >> indeed. to nick's point of responding people, but if you have a bunch of negative comments on your site, yelp or another review site, and you know there are customers who like you out there, what can you do? a lot of these review sites will filter out someone that's a new reviewer. they think it might be fake. >> something that sounds counterintuitive, but a friend of mine runs a restaurant company out in boston, and he will -- part of their strategy is always tell the truth. they will actually retweet or they will republish negative things that were said about them. they'll put it back out there with an apology, so they'll engage and say we're totally willing to take the feedback, i think is the message. that's one creative way to deal with something that's ultimately unfair. >> it's interesting, but you still, jon, want to have someone

come to yelp or whatever site it is and see positive comments, not negative. >> absolutely, and you have to generate those positive comments with a good experience. i think what nick is saying is you can also reach out to that individual and invite them back. >> right. >> and have them repost a positive experience and promote that, as well. you have to work it. yelp is a universe and as a marketer, small business marketers, we have to market that universe. we have to turn the negatives into positives and work each situation to our advantage. it's not easy, it's not always fair, but this is the environment we have to market in. >> and when you say "work it," what can i do, do i have to ask my guests, hey, post something on yelp for me, on angie's list, whatever the site is? >> i think we should. candidly, over the years, every city has their best burger contest, best pizza contest. the industry has been stuffing those ballots for years, all of our employees vote, our friends vote. nothing wrong with having a

server say, if you had a great experience tonight, please, tell us on yelp. there's nothing wrong with that. >> then let's take it to the next level. on some of these sites, if you are a one-time poster, they will filter you out. so do you have to then say to your guest, hey, post about me and the ice cream shop down the street so they'll keep your review? >> you have to stay very engaged with the audience. some of the best reviews you get are the negative reviews you turn around. sometimes that's an opportunity to engage with somebody who will beat the filter, so to speak. it is not a one-time event. this is a consistent process of reaching out to your audience through a whole bunch of different mediums. >> one more thing you need to think about, right, if your audience is the kind of audience that looks at review sites. guys, thank you so much for this. it is a tricky subject that's going to evolve, as everything on the internet does. stick around, because i need you back later in the show to answer more questions. >> deal. >> absolutely. customer reviews and

referrals are a huge generator of potential customer growth if you're looking to turn your biggest fans into marketing assets, check out our website of the week. customerlobby.com helps small business owners gather client reviews online. along with sending your reviews to other review sites like facebook and twitter, you can feature your reviews right on your own website. connecting with top twitter influencers can be a very effective way to grow your customer base. here now are five free tools to use to interact with influencers who know you, or are familiar with what you do, courtesy of smallbiztrends.com. >> one, who tweeted me sorts people who send you tweets by their number of followers. two, after a quick install of the bookmark tool, topsy will note influential tweeters. three, commune it organizes your online communication with that person and how much impact each

of the influencers' tweets made. four, friend or follow. this tool grabs all your friends who follow you but who you aren't following back and sorts them by the number of followers. you can follow them right from that page. and five, fruji. this site breaks your followers into groups by the number of followers, but also shares how likely it is for that person to notice your tweets. with so much content, competing for attention on the internet, you only have a few short seconds to catch someone's eye. enter, instagram. if you haven't considered using the mobile sharing website for your business, you might be missing out on its 100 million plus users. the service is a quick and easy way to engage and share your brand instantly through photos. lynn cooper is the founder and chief officer of a social media consulting and training firm that helps create digital

strategies for small businesses. so i love instagram. just as a person it's fun to take pictures and share them with people, but it can be helpful for a business. you were saying before, you may not be a good writer, but you can take a picture. >> why not put our words into pictures? >> you can first use it to tell your story as a business. >> so sight glass is a coffee roaster in san francisco, california, and they use instagram to tell you the everything from your the time of your beans, where they come from, so here, all the way to your cup. >> interesting, so it gives more flavor, no pun intended, to your company. you know the history of your company, where your coffee is coming from. you can do this with showing your employees doing something. >> absolutely, absolutely. it makes it really fun showing behind the scenes. i love to know sometimes where my clothes are made, who makes my things, it makes me feel more

comfortable and personable. >> get it. next is showcase your product. this seems obvious. >> this is a company called my pink lush. they are a online jewelry retailer. since being on instagram, they doubled their business because they were able to get people to mobilely buy. tell you the price, hash tag for a bracelet, all set. >> just a quick note on hash tags, put hash tag for bracelet in case somebody is searching for a bracelet, they'll search hash tag bracelet, all the bracelets on instagram will come up. >> absolutely, absolutely. >> always be sure to put the url. >> absolutely, absolutely. >> okay. moving on to the next one. let your fans be your star. this makes your instagram page a bit more interactive. >> it does. you want your fans to really look at your product, show them using your product. get engaged. i could see you using my product, wow, this is great, i could do it to. this is a company called oh to be a dog based out of pasadena,

california. of course, since they are a pet sitting service, their fans are dogs. this is great, owners can see their dogs after they've been walked or cared for by them and feel more comfortable. >> they take pictures of the dogs. this is a great way to get people to come to your instagram page because, of course, they are ing to want to come and see their dogs and they'll share that with their friends. >> absolutely, absolutely. the only thing that's lacking right now with instagram is the fact that you can't click those links to actually go to the internet, so unfortunately, the only thing they would be able to do is go back here and go there to be able to go to a page. but you can't actually click on a visible picture to direct them to something. >> but you can get people to your instagram page, someone can like this, and their friends can see it, as well, which gets people to your page, talk to you more about your business. and finally, be helpful. you can use this page to be helpful. basically, what you're trying to

do is do things that are interesting so people keep coming back. >> so being helpful, you want to give people tips, encouragement, feedback. this is the page of janet jenkins, a celebrity trainer, and she does awesome things like showing her working out. >> great idea again. >> tips, her personal life, you want to work with her, you know about her personality, feel that she's fun, getting people interested. >> again on the helpful part, i would follow her because i want to see here's a new, interesting exercise i can do. >> right. i don't know if i can do that. >> we'll try, we'll try. we can dream. all right, lynn, thank you so much. this is really helpful. instagram is a great tool and one small businesses really need to know about. >> thank you so much. >> thanks a lot. still to come, more important information to make your small business successful, including how to establish a close relationship with a banker and what to do when it's time to sell. plus, the owners of a hot new fitness company, soul cycle,

tell us what women bring to the table when it comes to starting and running a small business. ♪ brought to you by american express open. visit openforum.com for ideas to help you grow your business. building animatronics is all about getting things to work together. the timing, the actions, the reactions. everything has to synch up. my expenses are no different. receiptmatch on the business gold rewards card synchronizes your business expenses. just shoot your business card receipts and they're automatically matched up with the charges on your online statement. i'm john kaplan, and i'm a member of a synchronized world. this is what membership is. this is what membership does. seven years ago, two women

who had recently met each other decided to start a new kind of fitness company. today, that business is thriving. nbc's maria shaivacampo has mor. >> reporter: for superspinner julie rice, this isn't just a workout. it's work. seven years ago rice co-founded a unique brand of exercise calling her spin classes soul cycle and it it's been a wild ride ever since. >> we thought we could make exercise fun. we thought we could make it inspirational. >> reporter: the philosophy is part spin -- >> you guys ready to rock 'n' roll? >> reporter: -- part party, part meditation. 45 minutes of intense cardio, set to high energy music, lit only by candles. to say it is popular would be an

understatement. most days rice is riding right along with the pack. >> i'm always moved by it. i'm actually never immune to it. >> reporter: rice never thought she would end up in the fitness business. the married mom of two spent most of her career as a hollywood talent manager. when she couldn't find the perfect workout, she decided to create it. rice started the company with elizabeth cutler, a virtual stranger she only just met. >> it is like when you meet a great guy. you just know and i think for me and julie, we just really knew when we met each other, we shared a common vision immediately. >> reporter: they wrote out their business plan on a napkin. >> elizabeth whipped out a pen from the bottom of her purse. if we had this many bikes and we can get 75 people a day to come, we can pay the rent, we can pay our baby sitters, and we can be passionate about what we're doing. >> reporter: part of their vision, a laid back work place where most people show up in gym clothes and are encouraged to get in one workout a day. >> think about creating a place where our kids would want to come to work, where people are

actually going to grow up and have careers inside a business getting larger and larger and larger. >> reporter: most of the staff is under 30. >> women are incredible entrepreneurs. i think one of the reasons is we manage households and when you're managing a household, you can manage a small business. >> reporter: what once was a small business now has more than 5,000 riders each day and 14 studios in california and new york. >> things don't have to be giant in the beginning. a small idea can just be a small idea. >> reporter: rice also quickly learned there were life lessons she could take from soul cycle classes themselves. >> i would tell people not to overthink it. just do it. put one foot in front of the other. if you have a passion, and just make it happen. time now to answer some of your business questions. nick and john have joined us once again. first one is about getting out of your business. >> i want to have an exit strategy. i have a wonderful client base.

we have wonderful clients that we care about. and we just want to make sure that do i sell it, do i dissolve it? >> all right, i'll start with you, nick, because you had a couple of successful exits yourself. how do you figure out what the endgame is? >> great question. sometimes you know going in, right, if you had investors coming in, you know what you're headed for. in this woman's situation, it sounds like she developed the business on her own and now needs -- needs to find a good place for it to land. maybe it is opposed to looking externally, the way to do it is develop someone internally. someone comes in a junior level, can work their way up, and has the goal of taking over the business so she can move out in a slower and easier fashion. >> john, it seems like a smart thing to think about. once you know the end, you can work backwards to figure out how to get there. so with the parts you work with, how do people decide whether it is going to close, work internally like nick is talking about or going to sell to someone? >> what nick suggested is a darn

good one. i've done that with restaurants i've owned. i've sold them to my own general manager and i can provide the loan and the paper an the finance and put it together, put them in business and keep the same employees and the same customers. it is a nice transformation. we have to remember, every business is a value. typically you can sell a business for six to seven times what the earnings are. that can help her retirement. never dissolve it if it has value. look internally to sell it if you can, and if you can't, seek out a business broker. they can help you sell your business too. >> how do you find a good business broker? >> i would look for the type of business you own and see if there is other flower shops for sale. i would look for the broker handling those transactions whos aexperience marketing in that space. >> all right, let's move on to the next one. this is about building bridges with the bank. >> i would like to know how to establish a relationship, a close relationship with a banker.

and is it good to stay, like, with the big bank route or go to the smaller more community-sized banks? >> john, i think she's asking the right question in asking how to build a relationship because ultimately a lot of this comes down to relationships. >> years ago i used small banks and they all got gobbled up by the big banks. the signs changed four times in a year. i get more personal service and i won't mention which one out of a large bank now because the banker and the branch i work with than i have out of some small banks. it isn't big or small. it is the branch and the banker you're working with. >> how do you build a relationship? >> she's on to the right first step. i say when people start their business, it is usually with investors who are friends and family. if you think about it, those are people you've known all your life, 15, 20 years, before they will give you money, right? and then when people move into the banking world, they think it is a process or the financials or am i showing the right information? it is still about the relationship. it is about time. i think that where we had

successful relationships with the bank it is because we have known the banker in the branch for two or three years before you really get to point where you have a need for a significant amount of money. >> somebody suggested to me once also get the banker to know about your product or your service, before you go in to ask for money. if you have -- if you're selling cookies, send cookies to the bank and maybe not directly to him or her, the banker, but to somebody else. so he tastes them or she tastes them and they're good, and then when they come in, they recognize your name. the last question th. this is an e-mail from miles. how you to get your customers to trust you when you're first starting out. jo john, nobody knows you. how do you get people to put their money with you? >> guarantee means something. standing out there. testimonials mean everything from your first customers. and, attaching your own face, your own brand to a business

saying, i'm accountable, makes a big difference also. make people know they're doing business with a person, not just a business. in the beginning, that can create the trust you need. >> great idea. >> yeah, the only other thing i point out, he says in the beginning, it doesn't really end. the restaurant business is one you don't get to do a touchdown dance and celebrate. you got to get up the next day and make it happen again. so bringing that same day one approach every single day i think is something that can help build success over time. >> thank you so much. and, a special happy father's day also. father's day today. thanks, you guys. happy extra special father's day to my dad max who taught me so much of what i know about small business. thanks, dad. happy father's day. hope to see you both again soon. if any of you want to see more of today's show, go to our website, openforum.com/yourbusiness. you'll find all of today's segments and web exclusive

content with more information to help your business grow. you can also follow us on twitter. @msnbcyourbiz. and do not forget to become a fan of the show on facebook. next week, the owners of a play space based in new york city decide to open up branches in india and dubai. >> do as much research as you want, but you never really know how things are going to play out until you get there. >> how to determine if international expansion is right for your company. until then, i'm j.j. ramberg. remember, we make your business, our business. has it's ups and downs. seasonal... doesn't begin to describe it. my cashflow can literally change with the weather. anything that gives me some breathing room makes a big difference. the plum card from american express gives your business flexibility.