Crystal Amberlyn

In Katie Paine’s “Measure What Matters,” she highlights an interesting dilemma many people may not think of. In order to grow your company, you might expand it overseas or through franchises. This is great, but you may encounter some issues. You might be at risk of losing control of communication and consistency. Paine particularly highlights franchises. Separate franchises seem to be given more freedom. Therefore, it is highly likely for inconsistencies to form between franchises and the corporation. Some may not see the importance of this, but it can have some harmful effects. What if a franchise harms the company’s image? I can imagine this happening with fast-food franchises. Pretend one McDonald’s franchise does not follow proper food preparation procedures. Someone sees the issue, shares their findings on the media and the McDonald’s image is damaged. Although it was only one franchise, the whole corporation takes a hit. Paine also explains by having these franchises or exp...

Before reading Jason McDonald’s “Social Media Marketing Workbook,” I knew very little about Yelp. All I knew it was for reviews, but I did not know how it worked. After learning more about it, I find it quite interesting. In order to review a business, it must be listed, but how do businesses become listed? I assumed business owners would create listings for their businesses, but this is not the case. In fact, a business listing can be made without any involvement of the business owner! If a business is not listed a Yelp user, or Yelper, can create a listing for the business and review it. The business owner cannot delete the listing either. Is this fair? At first, I did not think is was, but it does make sense. The whole point of reviews is for prospective customers to verify if they are spending their money on a good product or service. If only business owners could make business listings and manage reviews, reviews would be worthless. Of course, business owners would hide ne...