Mobile Marketing: Yelp, Foursquare and Other Awesome Things

I’ve said it before, and I’m sure I’ll say it many more times: Local, mobile and social are the future of advertising and marketing.

What does this mean? People search for local businesses all the time. Where’s a good thai restaurant nearby? Where’s the closest place to get my oil changed? These searches are being done at home, on laptops in coffee shops, from people’s iPhones. And as a business owner it’s important that you know what’s happening and adjust your marketing strategy accordingly.

Two companies in particular are seriously nailing this strategy: Yelp and Foursquare.

Yelp is a social networking site for reviews. You can do searches for local businesses, then see reviews that other members have posted for that business. And you can also post your own reviews. Restaurants with great Yelp reviews even get stickers like the Zagat ones to put on their front doors. It definitely means something to be highly reviewed by members of Yelp. Then came the Yelp iPhone app, so you can read and write reviews while you’re AT the business! And they didn’t stop there…

Foursquare is sort of derived from a couple different social networks for events: Upcoming.org, Meetup.com, etc. But originally specifically for iPhones. They’ve made a ton of updates and made the app available for other smartphones and the app is more fun and awesome than ever.

How does all of this relate to you as a business owner? Watch the clip and find out!

[FLOWPLAYER=http://media.mcintoshmarketing.com/live/yelp-foursquare.flv,400,325]