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Why Your Local Business Should Work with Yelp Elite

If you own a local business, be it a restaurant, bar, retail store, or even a local service provider, you might have heard of Yelp Elite. This coveted group of โ€œexpert reviewersโ€ gets more exposure on their reviews from others.

The Yelp Elite Squad reviews can have a positive or negative impact on your businessโ€™ reputation, even though negative reviews can help your businessย seem more trustworthy.

What Is the Yelp Elite Squad?

Yelp Elite Home Page

Yelp offers โ€œYelp Elite Benefitsโ€ to anyone considered a role model on the site. They achieve this crown by meeting some of the following qualifications:

  • Well-written reviews
  • A large quantity of both positive and critical reviews
  • A complete profile with plenty of high-quality photos
  • Detailed personal information
  • A background of responding to criticism positively

To become a member of the Yelp Elite Squad, itโ€™s clear that you canโ€™t simply hop around from restaurant to restaurant offering negative reviews in exchange for free meals. These people are usually food bloggers, photographers, and digital nomads who spend most of their time traveling and sampling the wares at each location.

Why Your Business Should Work with the Yelp Elite Squad

There are a couple of important reasons why you might want to work with these individual reviews:

Their Status Matters

Obtaining the Yelp Elite statusย isnโ€™t as easy as you think.

These people need to write as many as 40-50 high-quality reviews per year, maintain a large social network of other reviewers, interact with people on the platform, as well as a bunch of other factors to achieve and maintain this status.

What does that mean for you?

It means a lot of exposure if you can provide an excellent experience.

You Could Become the Local Expert

Does your business specialize in something? Elite members love going to places where they can get something that isnโ€™t available everywhere. It gives them something to talk about in the review.

Itโ€™s the difference between reviewing a hamburger shop and reviewing a vegan gastropub.

If your business does something a little unique or can generate attention for a specific product, itโ€™s worth it to invite a member or a group and knock it out of the park.

How Your Local Business Can Get Involved with the Yelp Elite Squad

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There are a few simple ways to work with the Yelp Elite Squad.

Host Elite Parties

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Hosting a Yelp Elite eventย could be a way to set yourself apart from the competition. Yelp makes it easy to do this because you can message your local Yelp community manager, and theyโ€™ll work with you to host an event if itโ€™s a good fit.

No matter what type of business you are, youโ€™ve got some positive reviews under your belt and a unique product to offer, consider reaching out. Thereโ€™s no harm in giving it your best shot.

Participate in Forums

Commenting on local forums on Yelpย is an excellent way to get your name out there, and you can leapfrog over the competition pretty easily this way. Letโ€™s say you own a ramen restaurant in downtown Knoxville, and people are posting in a forum trying to find something unique to eat in the city.

If youโ€™re staying up to date and checking in regularly, you can chime in on the thread to let people know you opened a ramen restaurant, provide the address, and give a little background on the place.

Bear in mind you most likely wonโ€™t have access to communication with Yelp Elite members, but discussing this with regular Yelpers might be a great way to get your foot in the door.

Direct Message

Sometimes you might just have to go all-in and message someone directly. If you find there are specific Yelp Elite members in your local area that you really want to get into your business, you can try this easy method.

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Youโ€™ll want to filter based on location and your type of business. For example, if you own a day spa, you wouldnโ€™t want to message a member who usually reviews restaurants.

You can then filter your competition by reviews, and there should be an โ€œeliteโ€ status on there. You can collect all the people who review businesses in your niche and message them one-by-one.

Before you do this, be choosy about who you message. Donโ€™t invite someone who is overly critical. Also, as with marketing of any kind, you need to understand your audience.

Take a look at their profile, see what they like and what some of their personality traits are, and donโ€™t be afraid to butter them up a little.

Donโ€™t just talk about your specials or what you do at your business; talk about the benefits of coming to visit you and how it could potentially be mutually beneficial for both of you.

Businesses That Have Found Success with Yelp Elite

Here is a brilliant example of how local businesses can find amazing success through the Yelp Elite program. In this scenario, six different businesses came together to provide a unique and extraordinary experience for all Indianapolis members.

In this โ€œFriendsgiving,โ€ Elitists were brought together for dinner, dessert, and drink tasting in a unique setting in the Tomlinson City Market Catacombs. They created an unforgettable experience, and if you look, the five-star reviews are endless. This will likely have a positive impact on their business for years to come.

In a different scenario, we see how you donโ€™t need to own a restaurant, bar, or food brand to benefit from Yelp Elite. In Clevelandโ€™s Playhouse Square, Elite members toured 1920โ€™s construction, received information on the cityโ€™s past, and learned all about the mystery behind their city.

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This resulted in several amazing reviews, positive experiences, and publicity for the cityโ€™s art district in exchange for a little bit of their time.

How Does the Yelp Elite Squad Compare to Google Guidesย 

If youโ€™ve heard of Yelp Elite, youโ€™ve likely heard of Google Guides as well. That platform debuted around 2015, and itโ€™s a way for Google to offer incentives for people who regularly review local businesses. It encourages those people to write more reviews so Google can provide a more pleasurable experience for its users.

Local guides receive a badgeย on their profile, social media features, and even an annual thank you gift of unknown value.

The one issue I see with Google Guidesย compared to Yelp Elite is that anyone can receive this badge on Google when they surpass a certain number of reviews. Many of these people only write reviews when theyโ€™ve had a poor experience. The reviewers arenโ€™t manually reviewed like they are in Yelp.

The program seems to be a lot more โ€œopenโ€ and less coveted than Elite status, but theyโ€™re still important because of the visibility a badge can bring.

It also doesnโ€™t seem like Google creates much of a community out of their Google Guides as Yelp does. Thereโ€™s no way to create events or persuade these reviewers to visit your business other than scouring the internet to try and find their contact information, which might come off as weird to the individual.

Other Ways to Work with Influencers

We live in the age of the influencer. While we tend to focus on Instagramย and TikTokย today, Yelp Elites were the original influencers, and theyโ€™re still relevant today. As a business owner, you should not ignore these people or Yelp in general.

While it might seem painful or even torturous to appeal to โ€œprofessional reviewers,โ€ itโ€™s beneficial for your business. Though itโ€™s not guaranteed, one great event or a few positive reviews from well respected Elite status members can give your business more visibility in Yelp search results.

If youโ€™re looking for a few different ways to work with influencers, here are a few quick tips to help:

Instagramย 

Just like on Yelp, send DMs to people in your local area by searching relevant hashtags that apply to your community. Find influencersย in your niche and location and send a bunch of DMs asking for them to reach out in exchange for a free product or service.

The good thing with Instagram is you donโ€™t have to follow the Yelp community guidelines stating you canโ€™t exchange goods and services for reviews. You may be able to find a new Elitist looking to conduct more reviews, and this could be a great way to get your name out there!

TikTok

On TikTok, you can become an influencer yourself. The platform is ripe for people who are interested in making a name for themselves. Post some of the most interesting aspects of your business, and be sure to follow trends.

Post whatever is currently trending on TikTok and try to get attention from local influencers. Once you do, find a way to contact them by searching for them on other platforms. If theyโ€™re on TikTok, theyโ€™re probably also on Instagram, and itโ€™s much easier to get in touch with them there.

Conclusionย 

As much as we like to keep our pride intact, sometimes itโ€™s beneficial for us to set it aside and do what we know we need to do for our business. Yelp Elite members are the first influencers, and theyโ€™re more than relevant for brick and mortar businesses.

If youโ€™re trying to get some attention and become more popular in your local community, Yelp Elite can help. If youโ€™re having trouble managing your reputation, my team can help with that.

Do you think Yelp Elite is an important part of a local SEO strategy?

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