To mark the occasion, CEO Jeremy Stoppelman met with local bloggers and social media marketers in Sydney to talk about the history of Yelp, some of the benefits to users and local businesses, and what lies ahead.

Some quick out-takes from this morning’s session include:

• More than 1,000,000 Australian businesses are already listed on Yelp.com.au and indexed in their mobile app
• Currently businesses from Melbourne and Sydney are included on Yelp Australia
• Roughly 80% of comments from Yelp users are positive
• The name Yelp comes from a combination of “Yellow Pages” and “help” – although they almost went with “Yocal”
• Businesses can use a toolkit to promote themselves and get setup on Yelp, and offer incentives and special offers to people who checkin
• Yelp users are fiercely competitive when it comes to earning a “First Review” status by being the first to review a business

But don’t get confused – Google’s only indexing the comments from the Facebook connect add-on commenting system (read this if you’d like to find out how to install it on your website), NOT personal Facebook comments on Facebook itself.

These comments are now being crawled – and ranked – in Google SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). It seems Google is continuing to take its dedication to integrating social signals into its search algorithm. Social signals refers to a social search feature that tailors  your personal search engine result rankings that’s influenced by your own social circle i.e. if a friend of yours has commented, +1′d or “Liked” a particular article, product listing or review, that result will rank above other “organic” results.

This is obviously going to be a huge plus for e-retailers – Think Geek is a great example of this. Their product pages utilise both a Facebook social plug-in as well as the Facebook “Like” button, allowing visitors to see which of their own friends have already “Liked” the product, as well as the ability to read what other users have to say about the product.

We already know that personal advice and online comments by users influence purchase decisions more strongly than other types of information, with online reviews second only to word of mouth in purchase influence. As such, there’s now an ongoing trend for marketers to consider integration with social platforms to support and encourage online comments and personal advice around products – and it’s precisely this phenomenon that Google (and/or Facebook) is leveraging by indexing Facebook comments. The key takeaway from Rubicon’s research above? The Web is the #2 resource for customer support information, after user manuals.  It ranks ahead of calling the manufacturer or asking a dealer.

Now, more than ever before, websites have more incentive to install the add-on, once again preserving Facebook’s position as the leading social network.

We’ve got a great example of the Facebook comments plugin below, right on Asia Digital Map, showcasing the broader appeal for the plugin on blogs and other content distributors. With social signals becoming more and more important to SEO, it does look like it’s the next frontier for Google and Bing. If you’d like to find what which social signals Google and Bing actually count, Search Engine Land has a really good article here.

In case you missed it, a Twitterstorm erupted Down Under this afternoon over a customer service (I use that term loosely) email from clothing retailer GASP. You can get all the juicy details here:

Exhibit A: The Complaint Email

Exhibit B: The Response from GASP Online Customer Care

Outrage over the email quickly gained traction and GaspGate soon burst into the Twitterstream with the hashtag #GASPFAIL  in the top 5 most trending topics in Sydney, #GASP taking spot number two on the national list.

The GASP Facebook page was the scene of a brand massacre with people expressing their disgust at GASP’s treatment of their clientele and inviting a response, apology, anything….

Whilst this PR disaster unfolded, there was one noticeable guest who did not come to the party, GASP. The only official response from GASP came through deleting Facebook posts from their wall before finally doing away with their brand page altogether.  #GASPFAIL indeed.

Here are some of the comments before the masses were silenced:

Aside from investing in staff training and development, what could they have done to better to manage the crisis? Well, quite a lot.

Like all businesses operating in this brave new world of always on here are some of the crucial mistakes made by GASP this afternoon:

1. Removed complaints from the Facebook Page
2. Remained silent
3. Removed the Facebook page completely
4. Still silent…
5. Twitter, which is a more prominent feedback channel during a crisis, was going off, yet the Gasp Twitter Handle remains, yep, you guessed it…silent (and barren to boot).
6. Links are being circulated to personal Facebook accounts of GASP staff, showing rather unsavoury comments (whether related or not to the customer service email). This shows you just how far consumers will go if wronged.

So, what could they have done?

1. Not handle the customer complaint the way they did first and foremost. They wouldn’t  have this issue had they handled that situation more wisely.
2. Listen and monitor. Once the issue erupted, they should have set up social media listening immediately for brand mentions. This would have provided many insights on what was happening and how the issue was escalating; this in turn would have provided critical information that the PR and management team could have built a plan from. Had GASP been monitoring they would have seen a spike in mentions which would have alerted them to the impending brand massacre.
3. Have a crisis plan in place. When things go wrong it is crucial that there is a clear escalation process and employees know what to do. You have to act with speed before the problem escalates and gets out of control.
4. Admit you’ve made a mistake and rectify it. Don’t stick your head in the sand and pretend there isn’t an issue, address the issue and address it publicly using your social media channels.
5. Be authentic. Don’t throw a canned response or token apology and expect it to change sentiment, it won’t.
6. Never EVER remove negative feedback from your social channels.  It’s social media 101. As GASP has learned, your community does not appreciate being silenced.
7. Have a social media policy. If your employees are active in social and identify themselves as an employee of your business,  they should have clear guidelines on what is and is not appropriate in social media

Crises happen all the time and we know how quickly they escalate with user generated content and social media as the accelerant. A combination of planning, preparation and process is your best defence. Have you got a crisis plan in place?

By Lucie Snape (@LucieSnape)

View “#GASPFAIL” on Storify

Sina Weibo launches a user data center as a potential revenue source
http://techrice.com/2011/06/15/sina-weibo-launches-user-data-center-a-potential-source-of-revenue-infographic/
Sina Weibo is offering their 140 million users tools to track and monitor their own Weibo accounts through data.weibo.com. The site allows users to monitor their own accounts on a weekly basis in five categories: influencer rating, followers, people followed, weekly top weibo, and top trending topics.

Renren to issue social credit card
http://thenextweb.com/asia/2011/06/15/renren-partners-with-china-merchants-bank-to-issue-credit-card-with-social-features/
Renren has just announced its partnership with one of China’s leading commercial banks, China Merchants Bank, to create a co-branded Renren CMB credit card that takes advantage of the social network’s features.
This credit card program takes advantage of social, location, and mobile services, where credit card holders will be able to “check in” from their current locations to receive promotional information from any of the ten thousand Merchants Bank merchant partners who happen to be located within the vicinity.

China: Truth, rumors, and a basket of fruit
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/evanosnos/2011/06/truth-rumors-and-fruit-baskets.html
China has been awash with rumours and uprisings in recent months. Part of this is due to access to the Internet. Though sites are censored and rumours are eventually erased from the public forum, authorities are still struggling to balance the release of information and public opinion.

Yahoo/Alibaba/Alipay/Jack Ma/Carol Bratz: What happened an what it really means
http://www.chinalawblog.com/2011/06/yahoo_alibaba_alipay_jack_ma_and_what_really_happened_and_what_it_means.html
Yahoo owns a part of Alibaba, which owned Alipay, the online payment business. According to Chinese law, this means it cannot be foreign owned. Yahoo alleges it just recently learned that Alibaba had transferred ownership of Alipay to a fully domestic Chinese entity. Alibaba is saying it did that so as to bring Alipay in line with the laws prohibiting foreign ownership of an online payment company.

Chinese E-Commerce Giant Taobao Splits Itself Up
http://www.businessinsider.com/taobao-split-jack-ma-2011-6?
Taobao, the biggest commerce site in China, is splitting itself up into three sites and entities. Taobao is often referred to as the “eBay of China” but it’s a much broader e-commerce platform and the split reflects that. Now there will be Taobao itself, a consumer-to-consumer marketplace (i.e. like eBay), Taobao Mall, a business-to-consumer marketplace (i.e. businesses open storefront on Taobao Mall to sell to consumers) and eTao, a shopping search engine. Despite the split, still no IPO of Taobao, on the horizon.

Chinese now spend 41% of their online time on social networks
http://thenextweb.com/asia/2011/06/13/chinese-now-spend-41-of-their-time-online-on-social-networks-in-lieu-of-news-sites/
A new report reveals that the Chinese now spend 41% of their time online on social networks, which indicates a major shift in how Chinese netizens are no longer purely consumers of web content, but are now more open to communicate, share, and engage online as well.
(Thanks to Sascha Engel for the link)

Chinese Secretly Copy Austrian UNESCO Town
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,768754,00.html
Residents of the Austrian mountain town of Hallstatt, population 800, are scandalized. A Chinese firm has plans to replicate the village — including its famous lake — in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, Austrian media reported this week.

Other Asia

Ebay, Yahoo, Google, Nokia, and Skype announce Asia Internet Coalition
http://www.campaignasia.com/Article/260505,ebay-yahoo-google-nokia-and-skype-launch-asia-internet-coalition.aspx
Ebay, Yahoo, Google, Nokia and Skype have joined forces to launch a new industry association, The Asia Internet Coalition (AIC), which aims to promote understanding and resolution of Internet policy issues in the Asia-Pacific region.

Village in India named after a Groupon clone
http://www.penn-olson.com/2011/06/15/village-in-india-named-after-a-groupon-clone
An Indian Groupon clone has adopted a village called Shiv Nagar in Uttar Pradesh, India, and renamed it to Snapdeal.com Nagar. The one-year-old online group-buying start-up will develop the village’s infrastructure, including installation of water pumps and support of the local school and hospital.

Taiwanese newspaper pre-announces iPad3
http://allthingsd.com/20110614/taiwan-newspaper-pre-announces-7-inch-ipad-3/
Taiwan’s Economic Daily, which correctly predicted some of the specs of the original iPad well ahead of its debut, has stated that Apple has another iPad in the works and intends to launch it before the end of the year. Rumour states that it will have a 7-inch touchscreen with an image resolution five to six times greater than the iPad2.

Malaysia braces for cyber-attacks
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110615/tc_afp/malaysiaturkeytechnologyinternethacking
Malaysian officials are bracing for hacker attacks on government websites by a group which sabotaged Turkish sites last week to protest against Internet censorship. Internet activists Anonymous warned on a website that they would target Malaysia’s government portal www.Malaysia.gov.my.

Singapore promotes healthy eating with apps
http://www.penn-olson.com/2011/06/10/singapore-promotes-healthy-eating-through-iphone-app/
To promote healthy eating, Singapore’s Health Promotion Board recently launched ‘Healthy Chef,’ an iPhone app that provides healthy cooking recipes for Singaporeans. The app provides over 70 recipes created by renowned chefs in Singapore with choices over Chinese, Malay, Indian or Western cuisines. A user can search for recipes based on calorie level and save them within their shopping list for future reference.
(Thanks to June Saowanee for the link)

Could this new iPhone app QuickerFeet to be launched in May 2011 make things any more obvious?

Location-aware QuickerFeet app gives consumers the ability to take advantage of any deals and promotions from their favourite brands and stores happening right there, right now. Altogether with instant notifications, live maps and social media sharing capabilities.

You can click on the following link to watch QuickerFeet app promotional video.

For vendors and retailers, QuickerFeet app means an instant, inexpensive and simple way to supercharge in-store promotions by reaching those around the point of purchase who are already in ‘shopping mode’.

Unlike Groupon and other group discount tools, QuickerFeet does not require pre-planning and traditional communication tools. It allows live promotions to be deployed on the spot addressing ever changing market needs.

Watch QuickerFeet vendor information video clicking here.

Aside from this particular tool, it’s clear that the traditional Path to Purchase  model (from Awareness to Purchase) is not linear and that mobile technology —in particular location-based services— provide a never-seen-before creative platform to influence purchase behaviour.

QuickerFeet is not the first and only application of its kind, but from time to time, some random feature that makes the user experience simpler or more just fun can make a platform tip. Do you think this app could get that kind of traction?

We’ve been working towards a guiding philosophy for the sort of marketing we do (or at  least, the sort we’d like to do) that gives us enough room to make decisions while providing a clear direction, or reference point, to check that we’re making progress.

And the closest we’ve got so far is this: “Be useful”

If truth be told, it started out as “Don’t be useless” which we liked as a both homage and self-directed threat. But we had a bout of the positives and tried to make it more about what you should do, rather than what you can’t.

But what does it mean? Take a look at a lot of traditional marketing (the ads, the catalogues, the mailers, the webpages and emails), and try to measure it’s usefulness. How much simpler does it make your life (or just your day)? How much did you learn from it? How much more do you know now than you did before you read or listened to that piece of marketing? What can you do now that you couldn’t do before? How much time or effort has it saved you? If you had to pay for that piece of marketing, how much would you be willing to hand over?

FWIW, I think this is particularly important when answering briefs that describe the audience as “Time-poor” (ands that’s just about everyone, as far as I can tell). If they don;t have much time for anything, they certainly don’t have time to spend on stuff that isn’t useful to them.

These are pretty tough questions for a piece of marketing collateral to answer. But what if we stopped creating marketing and started building something else on behalf of our clients? Something that helped people, that gave them information, or a tool or an experience, or wisdom? Or anything really, as long as it was useful.

We’ve been playing at the edges of this for a while – our Live Event Matchmaking effort for IBM’s Pulse events was a step, but we believe we’ve moved even closer with a recent campaign for IBM’s sponsorship of the Australian Open 2011 tennis tournament. We took a look at all the data that IBM generate  from the action on the court, married it up with all th open-source data that fans generate on the web and presented it back as a data-powered window on the Open experience:

This game-changing initiative is predicted to reinvent the way we use email, which has not evolved much since much in the last 20 years.

To learn about the new feature, watch this simple video:

What could this mean for brands on Facebook?

• More Facebook: The one-stop integrated social communications feature will surely mean that the 600M+ users will spend more time interacting on Facebook (50% are daily users, according to Facebook’s CEO)
• More Control (& Less Spam): Since users first have to accept or befriend brands in order to receive communications from them, “unfamiliar” brands can expect a higher rate of bounced emails. This also means users will receive less “Spamish” & intrusive emails.
• More History: Brand-user communications will be stored FOREVER, which could allow users to dig up past brand communications to possibly use against the brand. This could be a challenge for brands that are constantly evolving.
• More Personal: The feature also forces brands to have more organic, one-to-one conversations with fans
• More Involvement: The intimate & personal nature of this feature could force companies to involve more employees in social conversations with consumers, allowing them to be the face of the brand as they engage on a more one-to-one level with consumers.

How do you think this feature will affect brand-consumer relationship & engagement on Facebook?

Here are effective ways to integrate social with emails

In emails:
• Add links to follow or subscribe social media profiles
Example:
• Include social media share options:
Example:
• Provide incentives for sharing email content
Example:

• In social media: Provide email sign up options in the brand’s social media channels, such as Facebook page
• On the phone: If there is a physical call centre, allow representatives to ask customers for social media opt-in options, in addition to the e-mail opt-in option
• On the web: On the newsletter/email sign up page within the website, list & link to all social media profiles & provide an option for customers to join your social media profiles

Results to expect when integrating social media with email campaigns:
1. An increase of subscribers to social media profiles
2. An increase in the number of social media mentions
3. An increase of email subscribers
4. An increase in the amount of web traffic/leads from social media
5. An improvement in SEO through social mentions in search engines

Here is a creative example of social media & email integration:

There are more than 30,000 non-executive members of company boards across Australia. If you are one of them, what are the questions you should be asking about how the business you manage is handling social media?

We’ve put together five “starter” questions that corporate board members should ask to gauge how well the companies they oversee are managing the risks and taking advantage of the opportunities presented by social media.

What other questions should board members be asking?