Starting tonight, local businesses that have created free accounts and claimed their listings on Yelp will receive additional analytics specific to mobile user traffic: the number of times they've shown up in mobile search, the number of times mobile users have clicked to call them by telephone and the number of times users have clicked for directions to their business.
Yelp says that 2 million unique users searched on a mobile Yelp app last month, performing 27% of the total searches the company saw. The entire Foursquare network claims 1.8 million users. Yelp said this Spring that it sees 31 million unique visitors to its website every month.
Did you know Yelp was for more than just restaurants? 15 times bigger than Foursquare. Wow. Check it out today at http://www.yelp.ca in Canada or http://www.Yelp.com for USA or Yelp.co.uk for UK, and about 38 other domains Yelp! Inc. owns. Of course there's always the http://www.yelpsucks.com domain which Yelp was smart enough to purchase themselves -- for use, I suppose, if they start thinking their own service isn't that great. Which do you prefer? Foursquare or Yelp? Would you use a mobile device that allowed you to check in and submit reviews to both Foursquare and Yelp at the same time?
We are at the beginning of an exciting new era of location based advertising that integrates geo-location with advertising and apps. Foursquare, Facebook Places, Gowalla, Yelp, BrightKite, Loopt. These are just a few of the geo location based applications that are going to change everything in advertising & marketing. Location based advertising allows anyone to target potential customers when they are within a certain distance from a select location such as a store, event or meeting place. Start thinking now how your business can integrate its goals, offerings, services and products with location based advertising opportunities.
