They say no news is good news. Unfortunately that tenet doesn't always apply when it comes to social.
Take the recent case of the Union Street Guest House.
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The New York Hotel recently made headlines for its unique policy towards wedding guests: any negative reviews attracted a $500 fine.
To soften the blow, the hotel thoughtfully promised to refund the fine once any negative reviews were taken down.
Predictably, once news of the policy broke the Union Street Guest House faced a flurry of social fury.
Blow back
The hotel responded by removing the policy from its website. When that did nothing it tried to pass the entire episode off as a joke.
That didn't deter users from flooding the hotel's Yelp page with negative reviews.
Soon Yelp issued a statement condemning the move. Then news spread to TripAdvisor, which also distanced itself from the hotel's policy.
While the legality of the policy is unclear, it's a fair bet that the negative publicity cost the Union Street Guest House far more than $500.
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