Yelp should be getting a big boost to its number of reviews now that the company just announced it has added the ability to leave reviews from mobile devices.
Starting today, iPhone users will be able to write and publish reviews from the Yelp app. The functionality will be available on Android soon.
“Starting today, Yelpers won’t have to wait until they get home to tell the world why their neighborhood barber is deserving of five shiny stars – they can do it directly from their phones, while they’re on-the-go,” a Yelp product manager writes in a blog post. “What’s more, any photos that a Yelper has taken of the business they are reviewing will now appear in-line with their mobile reviews, similar to how they do on the website.”
Yelp announced back in June that it would match users’ photos with their reviews, and display them together. This is a potentially good way for business pages to feature more imagery. According to the company, users stay on Yelp business listings 2.5 times longer when they have photos.
“Prior to today, we offered Yelpers the option to leave a Tip after checking in at a business,” the product manager says. “Tips are still here to stay and are great for bite-sized content (i.e. “great jukebox!”). Mobile reviews are a better option for people looking to go into detail about the factors that contribute to a business’ star rating.”
Yelp says it may post reviews that are too short as tips as it experiments with rolling out the feature. If this happens to your review, you can go back and add to it to make it become a legit review.
Yelp says its mobile app is used on 10.4 million unique devices per month. Meanwhile, the company is battling fake reviews to maintain user trust.