Bronte Media

Judy’s Book and Insider Pages more publicly woo’d reviews to their site in the early days by offering Starbucks gift cards and money for Gas. Yelp, apparently did as well, in an interesting profile of the company from Businessweek. First at $1 a pop and then through a network of intern-like (not meant as a slant, I love interns and can’t wait for the summer again :)) at $15/hr.

But I bet their best users aren’t motivated so much by the $15/hr than from the Elite Squad status (a great idea whereby people have a differentiated profile, get a tshirt and get invited to parties). They could do a lot more, though.

If there is one thing that reality TV has taught us is that people want to be famous and not necessarily rich.

So make the best users of your site famous. Have a person who co-ordinates the thousands of restaurant PR folks and club promoters and get the best reviewers/cool kids the freebies/special service. Co-ordinate press opportunities with free newspapers who’d love to have columns/reviews from these folks in their weekly rags stuffed with band listings, nightclubs and sex worker ads. All the schwag that fashion brands want to seed with the ‘influencers’ - make it easy for the brands to find them through their Yelp status and help facilitate it.

Help bring their personalities to the forefront through videos and try to get them on cable TV.

I think offering monetary incentives is a slippery slope to walk. Yelp realized early that it was more about status and personality (photos on profiles, friends etc.), but the key is to take the initial idea and create teenage Internet-born Bruni’s and Wintour’s.

That is what really drives people’s effort - the chance to win.

Or if that fails, lottery economics. Rather than paying 100 people $15/hr give away a prize that is the equivalent of $1,500 an hour and watch as 500 people work just as hard in chasing it.