"Why We Created the Yelp Elite Squad: The Psychology of Collecting Real and Authentic Reviews"

"Why We Created the Yelp Elite Squad: The Psychology of Collecting Real and Authentic Reviews"

One question that constantly came up when we were building Yelp was, "Why would I ever want to write a review?" This became the million-dollar question for us. How could we create a platform that thrived on real and authentic reviews from everyday people, without having to pay them? We understood that for people to truly get behind something, they needed to believe in it as if it was their own creation.

Yelp had to stand for something, and just as importantly, it had to stand against something. We wanted to build a foundation of real people sharing their genuine opinions and experiences. We realized that in order to be truly authentic, money could not sway the incentive. We needed to bring humanity to Yelp, making it more than just a platform for reviews, but a community of like-minded individuals sharing their insights and recommendations.

In the early stages of launching Yelp in each city, our goal was to emphasize a sense of belonging and purpose that was qualitative and not necessarily quantifiable. We wanted to identify the heavy lifters on Yelp, the individuals who were the tastemakers in their respective cities. We believed that nurturing a core group of super reviewers, whom we called the Elite Squad, would be more impactful than having a large number of average reviewers. These Elites had to feel like royalty, or mayors in a more city-centric sense. We wanted to convey the message that great businesses were built by the people, for the people, and Yelp was the platform where this could happen.

By adding faces to fellow members and the businesses themselves, we were able to build loyalty and connectivity within the Yelp community. When people interacted in real life, it created a sense of camaraderie and reinforced each other's tastes and insights. We understood that the value of their collections (in this case, their reviews) was not monetary but emotional. Collecting reviews became a quest, a lifelong pursuit that could never be completed. They found happiness in adding new finds to their collection, the excitement of the hunt, and the social camaraderie when sharing their collection with other members of the Yelp Elite Squad.

The psychology of collecting plays a significant role in the success of Yelp. Psychologists have often taken a Freudian perspective when describing why people collect. They highlight the controlling and impulsive dark side to collecting, emphasizing the need for people to have an "object of desire." This desire, and the innate propensity to collect, begins at birth. People collect for various motives, and these motives are not mutually exclusive. Different motives combine to create a unique collecting experience for each individual.