Anyone use YELP?

F

firehawk

Veteran
They offer free listings as well as a variety of paid options ranging from hundreds to thousands per month. They claim to be a dominant force in people searching for services using desktops, mobile devices as well as several car models. They seem to have an involved review screening algorithm that filters out fakes and sometimes legit reviews as well. What have been your experiences? Does it bring many leads?
 
I use it for finding restaurants when traveling as well as vendors. For instance I found a fantastic limo driver down in NOLA a couple of years ago. I fail to see the point from an advertising point of view, no experience there.
 
Maybe someone will chime in that is using it. I've had a free ad on there for years. Most of my competitors either aren't on there or haven't done anything with their listing - no picture, no description etc. So I'm wondering if it really isn't the dominant force they say it is.
 
It might be a matter of which services one might think of to use it as a reference, where are there likely to be a sufficient number of opinions to matter to a buyer? So restaurants are a great place to advertise - I like it when there is a direct link to the menu or at least the restaurant's website.
 
My only dealings with Yelp was when they offered me
$200 to shoot and edit a video business profile for a
business who was going to advertise with them.
I declined.
 
Cant say I believe in yelp reviews one bit as people upset are far more likely to write reviews than those pleased. Southpark made a killer episode on yelp that is worth taking a look at too.
 
Yeah, that's the general consensus. I think having more ads, even if no one uses them/visits them, makes you more searchable though? If the ad has linkbacks to your site?
 
Josh Bass said:
i thought we were talking about it as it applies to advertising video production services?
Click to expand...
Yes. We are. Or that was my original intent ;)

I had a pleasant lengthy phone call from a YELP guy and he showed me where some video places in CA were invested in YELP and had lots of reviews. But in my area I largely saw people I didn't know about and the main competitors didn't have much of a presence (if any) as if they hadn't put any effort into their listings at all, or even knew they had a listing.

He said Yahoo is tied to YELP and also a number of luxury cars in-car systems use it. And even SIRI on mobile.
 
I wouldn't "invest" in it. . .all the ads I mentioned I had up earlier are places that let you make profiles/ads for free. I tried a paid listing with Videographies years ago 'cause they had a deal where it was $38(!) for six months (not EACH month, for all six months). HOw could I pass that up? Did not land one gig. I would consider productionhub since they are legit but that's a $500/year commitment (no monthly option). Even though one job would (or SHOULD) pay for it, still seems a little scary.

If there's a free option on Yelp it's worth considering, though it could bite you if a job didn't go well and they want to review you, or even a disgruntled POTENTIAL client could do the same ("I called this asshole and he quoted me $1000 for my video! $1000! Is he crazy? These guys on CL will shoot and edit a 10-camera wedding for $250! LOLZ! Whatever, loser!")
 
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