MA: Global Media Management

Xu Qing

27640949

Yelp: A Well-known Review Website

Introduction

“Yelp is an online urban city guide that helps people

find places to eat, shop, drink, relax and play, based on

the informed opinions of a vibrant and active

community of locals in the know”

— Yelp, 2015GOOGLE (2016)

Marketing and Branding

Yelp slogan

GOOGLE (2016)

Marketing and Branding

GOOGLE (2016)

• Local: “It can provide local business like restaurants and hair stylists to the local people or the tourists based on local reviews and social networking functionality” (Ten things you should know about Yelp, 2014),

Marketing and Branding

GOOGLE (2016)

• Social: 1. Make reviews each other. 2 .Create social homepages and adding friends.

Marketing and Branding

GOOGLE (2016)

• Social: Yelp cooperated with Yahoo and Bitcoin.

Marketing and Branding

GOOGLE (2016)

• Mobile :

Marketing and Branding

GOOGLE (2016)

• Advertising :

Technological Affordance

• As noted by Mondschein (2015), Yelp can be regarded as an online dictionary that providing information and guide of entertainments and location.

• Yelp encourages users to write more than 100 words in the reviews according to their experience.

• Yelp users need to rating as well, from 1-5 star, least to most favorable, showing the degree of satisfaction of it.

• Yelp has introduced a series of new functions, such as Reservations, Deals and Delivery.

User Experience

GOOGLE (2016)

• Luca and Zervas (2013), “16% of the Boston area Yelp restaurant reviews were deceptive, mostly driven by increased competition or weak reputation.”

User Experience• A female test participating of Yelp put forward that: “I

found it difficult to filter by what was close to me. I would have liked it if that were a bit more intuitive.”

https://youtu.be/YGhD9EWWvWY (68 seconds)• The business also use Yelp for advertising and promotion

Conclusion

• Although Yelp has won the great reputation among the

public, and covered most of countries in the world, it

still has a series of limitations to be improved. Yelp

should take measures on the limitations and to make it

better for Yelp users.

Reference• Luca, M and Zervas, G. (2013) Fake it till you make it: Reputation,

competition, and Yelp review fraud. Harvard Business School NOM Unit.

• Mondschein, A. (2015) Five-star transportation: using online activity

reviews to examine mode choice to non-work destinations.

Transportation. 42 (4). p. 707-722.

• Ten things you should know about Yelp. (2014) [Online] Available from:

http://www.yelp.com/about[Accessed: 5th January 2016]

• Yelp. (2015) FAQ. [Online] Available from:

http://www.yelp.com/faq#what_is_yelp.

[Accessed: 5th January 2016].

ReferenceGoogle. (2016) Yelp. Available from:https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=yelp&rlz=1C5CHFA_enGB650GB650&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiZ8dCI86LKAhXJORQKHWmjC_MQ_AUICCgB&biw=1184&bih=571#imgrc=ZxMT4bkKGAHU-M%3A[Accessed: 11th January 2016]

User testing. (2015) Yelp Study: Filtering for Thai food.

[Podcast] Available from:

https://youtu.be/YGhD9EWWvWY

[Accessed: 11th January 2016]