The Democratic National Convention came and went, and now its time for the Republicans to have their chance. So who where the losers and the winners? No I don’t mean in politics, this is a CityWaboo Blog. The local businesses in Denver and Saint Paul should have capitalized on the tens of thousands of visitors that were hungry, sleepy, and wanted to party. Well maybe not party.

Most of the delegates that are at the convention are from out of town, so to find a place to eat, sleep and even find a local cleaners will undoubtedly result in a search for restaurants, hotels and cleaners in Denver or Saint Paul.

Here is where local businesses need to capitalize on the large amount of traffic that major search engines like Google and Yahoo, and local city guides such as CitySearch.com and CityWaboo.com receive. Just thinking ahead for couple of months can result in great short term business; which can translate into a positive long term reputation.

There are influencers in any arena, as I was flipping through the channels, I caught a glimpse of one of the local political reporters doing a story on what and where the delegates are eating and they were showcasing a sandwich spot 5 miles from the convention. I thought wow national coverage for a local sandwich shop. You can not buy this kind of publicity.

So what can that sandwich shop do to have more of a lingering effect from the national converge and also capitalize on the thousands of people that will come through their doors in the next 5 days; given that these people might not ever come back to Denver or eat at that sandwich shop again?

Below I am outlining some of the steps any business can take to make sure that their online marketing efforts are positive, lingering and can capitalize on busy times to offset the time of the year when business is slow.

1. Have an online presence. If I am ordering flowers or looking for a place to eat, at least I want to see what’s on the menu.
2. Check your business profile on major search engines. Type in your business name in Google or Yahoo search and see where your business profile is populated. You will be surprised at what you see. It’s like a market research on your business in 10 seconds or less.
3. Check the popular review sites such as Yelp, CitySearch, and CityWaboo to find out what your customers are saying about your business.
4. Don’t be disheartened about bad reviews, it is a chance to see what you are doing right and wrong.
5. Add your business to the above sites if you do not see them listed. Most sites will give you the opportunity to add a free profile. For an extra couple of bucks a day many site like CityWaboo.com will give you an enhanced profile, with all the bells and whistles like pictures, special comments, bold business name, multiple keywords and more.

Now that you have your profile created, it is time to put it into use.

6. Identify key events or situations that you might want to capitalize. For florists, one of their busiest days is Valentines Day, for that sandwich shop the Democratic National Convention.
7. Each customer should be treated as a potential ambassador for your business and should be used to spread the word about your business.
8. Start directing your satisfied customers online to rate, review and recommend your business. This can be done in multiple ways.
9. CityWaboo offers business card size postcards that have your business information on one side and an invitation for the card holder to go on CityWaboo and rate, review and recommend your business.
10. Having a laptop or a computer in a corner, and having your customers rave about you right there and then.
11. Collecting customer email addresses at time of check out, you will be surprised how many people will actually give you their personal email addresses. Sugarcoat it with a discount offer. Use those emails to direct them to the review sites. (contrary to popular belief of sending them straight to your company website: see # 12)
12. Every business has heard of word of mouth advertising. Websites such as CityWaboo, Yelp and others have taken this concept to the next level. In particular CityWaboo brings back search results with local member recommendations and if you sign in, you can also see your friend recommendations. So the more people recommend your business, the more chances for your business to be shown. The best part of all— it’s free.

    Monitor your results; the best campaign is the one that is followed. So take advantage of busy times and convert those one time customers into ambassadors for your business.

For more information about Eduard Arakelyan and other business marketing information please visit www.citywaboo.com

It’s been over a month, and still when I approach our offices, these yellow page phone books are laying beside the door. I wonder… has the time of hard copy yellow pages passed us? I remember the days that yellow page phone books were the only source of locating business information, it seems as the age of the internet is ever growing, the dependence on these older, more traditional forms of information have dissipated.

More and more people are turning to the internet as their main source of gathering information. Thus, online businesses, online advertising, and online marketing are a growing industry separate and more effective than that of traditional methods. When businesses target demographics locally, online advertising can reach a more streamlined demographic, which suits a businesses needs more adequately, thus enhancing traffic to their business and in turn increasing profitability of the business as a whole.

People want ease when looking for information and they find this in the internet, with search sites they simply type in what they want and pages appear providing them with results, as opposed to flipping through a huge bulky paper version that may or may not provide results. People also want simplicity and prefer compact items, having a paper copy means finding a place for it, it also means knowing the correct spelling and city that it’s located in.

With the internet, none of that is necessary, a person doesn’t even need to know the name of the business when searching for a particular service. Keywords on the net have enhanced searching to a level that paper versions can not compare with. To bring further clarity, using CityWaboo as an example, a person can type in a number of things and receive results, using words that describe something, such as “great hair stylist” instead of looking up “Frankie’s Salon”.

It’s no wonder that these books have laid outside stuffed into the corner between the building wall and the doors. They provide minimal value to a “user” and in the age of the internet, people want simplicity, quickness, ease and choice.

Some of you may experienced a few hiccups on the CityWaboo website yesterday, this was due to the overwhelming traffic on the CityWaboo website late yesterday afternoon. With so many people on the website, our servers temporarily crashed. If you were trying to access the site and could not, that is most likely the reason. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate all of the feedback that everyone has given us. Stay on the look out for the new and improved CityWaboo coming soon!

  “Burbank-based CityWaboo has launched yet another online local search site, focused on ratings, reviews, and recommendations of local businesses. The company–which had rolled out the site in beta form last May–is focused on letting friends and others share ratings and reviews of local restaurants and other businesses. The service, which also has launched a Facebook application tied to its reviews, sells advertising to local businesses. The site follows CitySearch, InsiderPages.com, Angie’s List, Yahoo Local, Yelp, and ill fated Judy’s Book into the local business reviews and guide market.”-socalTECH.com

Business Week recently wrote an article titled Where Customers go to Praise (or Bash) You and CityWaboo was profiled within the article, along with some other up and coming players! Locally targeted online advertising is becoming recognized more as an advertising and marketing avenue, as it provides high visibility to a wide range of demographics. Learn more about the advantages to placing a business listing on CityWaboo.

CityWaboo focuses on providing a place for people to connect with one another and get information through reviews and recommendations on where there friends go for a particular service or item. CityWaboo is a place to find where to go from the people that you know, giving you more relevant results when you’re looking for a particular business or service. Create an account, find your friends, and write reviews!

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CityWaboo wants to know what you think about the newsletters that we send you every month. We aim at bringing you top events throughout the month and informative information on places to try in and surrounding Los Angeles. We need your help though. Everyone wants something different, and you our users are no different. We want to know what you’d like to see. What things do you find yourself asking about Los Angeles? Are you having a hard time finding things to do? Or maybe you’re interested in a part of LA or surrounding neighborhood. Whatever your interest, let us know. We want to make these newsletters beneficial and fun for you, so drop us a comment giving us feedback on what you like, don’t like or would like us to add.

We’ve been working very hard at improving CityWaboo so that it provides you the user with a more valuable experience! We realize that you want to ask your friends for advice on where to go and what to do in your city and that’s exactly what we’re making happen! We’re not only improving things behind the scenes, but we’re also making the site more interactive and FUN for you the user!

CityWaboo is upgrading our social search platform enabling our users to fully customize their user pages, searches, and a black book of favorite businesses for your reference. We’ve also been improving our search engine, which means you get quicker more accurate results with every search you perform! The new version is highly anticipated, keep visiting the CityWaboo Blog for more details on the progress of our new social search platform!

Social Networking is half the fun of being a CityWaboo member and building that inner circle can help you to discover new and exciting places to visit and things to do. Each of your friends offer a different aspects to your life, for example, one of your friends is your “shopping” buddy, another friend is your “eat-out” buddy, another is your “spa-day” buddy, and yet another “fun” buddy. With your inner circle, all of your friends can simply rate and review the businesses they’ve visited and you’ll automatically have access to these recommended places in your “Friend’s Favorites”. With the “Friend’s Favorites” you’ve got your shopping buddy, eat out buddy, spa-day buddy, and fun buddy’s favorite places from restaurants to body shops and golf courses to nail salons.

Building your inner circle is easy and there are multiple ways that you can do this. Try inviting all of your friends by using your email accounts to send an invite, you can also individually type in your friends email addresses. Another way to increase your circle is to add other users to your friends list. How do you decide which users on CityWaboo to add? Well, it’s simple, just add those people who’s reviews you’ve found helpful. Encourage your inner circle to upload photos of their favorite places as well. This will only help you when deciding if you want to visit that particular business. Expand your inner circle and explore the new places that all your friends are raving about!

As promised, CityWaboo has been sending out event newsletters to all of our members every Wednesday. Last Wednesday’s email had a bit of a twist however, stating that the first ten to reply would receive a pair of VIP tickets to the Laugh Factory’s 8 PM All Star Comedy show! Emails came pouring in and we were able to award all ten pairs to our loyal CityWaboo users.

Host Joshua Escandon took the stage first warming up the crowd and bringing the comedians to the stage one by one. The night was a ton of laughs! Comedians such as Chris Spencer from The Chris Rock Show and The Jamie Foxx Show, Gerry Bednob from 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up, Eddie Ifft, and Mike Marino took the stage leaving the crowd in an uproar!

All of those that couldn’t make it, be on the lookout for additional ways to win VIP tickets in the Wednesday Event Newsletter!