Yelp launches in Australia

In one of the first major launches of a social network in Australia since Foursquare, Yelp today officially launched its Australian presence at www.yelp.com.au.

To mark the occasion, CEO Jeremy Stoppelman met with local bloggers and social media marketers in Sydney to talk about the history of Yelp, some of the benefits to users and local businesses, and what lies ahead.

Some quick out-takes from this morning’s session include:

• More than 1,000,000 Australian businesses are already listed on Yelp.com.au and indexed in their mobile app
• Currently businesses from Melbourne and Sydney are included on Yelp Australia
• Roughly 80% of comments from Yelp users are positive
• The name Yelp comes from a combination of “Yellow Pages” and “help” – although they almost went with “Yocal”
• Businesses can use a toolkit to promote themselves and get setup on Yelp, and offer incentives and special offers to people who checkin
• Yelp users are fiercely competitive when it comes to earning a “First Review” status by being the first to review a business

Yelp is looking for a Sydney community manager, so if you’re interested and know someone who’s an expert on everything Sydney, check out the job posting on Seek.

Stay tuned to the #YELPAU hashtag today to follow the reaction to Yelp’s arrival in Australia.

Foursquare for Business

Social Media has changed the way businesses are operating across Australia, with consumers spending an increasing amount of their time on Twitter, Blogs, Facebook and other forms of Social Media.

Companies can no longer afford to ignore discussions online about their brand. Working in partnership with The Wall Street Journal, Ogilvy’s specialized Social Media team has created a series of tutorials to help companies take those first steps.

The latest in the series, “Foursquare for Business”, will take place on August 19 at 1PM Sydney time.

Foursquare is the hottest new social media platform that is taking Australia and APAC by storm.

Part game, part social network, Foursquare allows people to “check in” wherever they are via their mobile devices, become “Mayor” of their favourite locations, and earn fun “badges” along the way.

Foursquare presents some tremendous opportunities to brands and businesses of every size. From Microsoft’s launch of Office 2010 via a Foursquare Mayor Meetup in Australia to Dominos Pizza seeing an increase in profit through a Foursquare program, this new social media platform is proving it’s worth its weight in ROI.

Join Ogilvy’s award-winning Asia-Pacific Social Media team, including Brian Giesen and Thomas Crampton for a free 30-minute online seminar powered by Citrix GoToWebinar.

Attend this live, interactive Webinar to learn:

1. What is Foursquare and why is it so addictive?
2. How do you use Foursquare to achieve a communications or business objective?
3. How should you assemble a strategy?
4. What NOT to do with Foursquare?

Space is limited for this 30-minute Webinar* and registration is required.

Sign up here http://www.asiadigitalmap.com/2010/08/foursquare-for-busines/