Yelp Targets Foursquare, Facebook With Check-In Offers

Nov 23, 2010 at 4:00am ET by Matt McGee

Yelp continues to play catch-up with some of its competition in the local search landscape. The company’s latest move is the announcement of “Check-in Offers.”

If you’re familiar with the premise behind Foursquare’s business users rewarding “mayors” and others who check-in to local businesses, you’ll be familiar with Yelp’s product. The idea is the same: Local businesses using Yelp’s business tools can reward customers when they check-in via Yelp’s mobile apps. Check-in offers is available now in the countries where Yelp offers a business dashboard, namely the US, Canada, UK, and Ireland. Wisely, Yelp is also restricting Check-in Offers from some SMB categories where check-ins aren’t realistic — plumbers, limo drivers, and others who go out to visit customers rather than vice versa.

Yelp is not only competing with Foursquare (and others) in this space, but Facebook also just announced its deals service earlier this month as part of check-ins made via Facebook Places.

But in some ways, Yelp may have a leg up on those sites despite its later entry into the check-in offers space. Yelp is more established than Foursquare with a larger and more active user base. (At our SMX East conference last month, Yelp COO Geoff Donaker reported that Yelp saw about 38 million unique visitors on its web site the previous month. Foursquare reports that it has four million users worldwide.)

Further, Yelp’s potential advantage over Facebook on the business side is that Yelp is already recognized and accepted by (many) local businesses as a viable (and necessary) marketing/customer service venue. Facebook, on the other hand, remains more of a marketing mystery for SMBs in some industries and tends to be seen as a place where the social aspect (friends, games, etc.) takes precedence over any business elements.

The 800-lb. gorilla in all this, of course, is Google. The company has what you might call a mish-mash of local and social products (Google Places, Coupons, Buzz, Latitude), but it has yet to develop a coherent product that directly competes with what Foursquare, Facebook, and now Yelp offer in this area. Give it time.

About The Author: Matt McGee is Editor-In-Chief of Search Engine Land. His news career includes time spent in TV, radio, and print journalism. His web career continues to include a small number of SEO and social media consulting clients, as well as regular speaking engagements at marketing events around the U.S. He blogs at Small Business Search Marketing and can be found on Twitter at @MattMcGee and/or on Google Plus. You can read Matt's disclosures on his personal blog. See more articles by Matt McGee

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