City Guide and Review Apps:
HeyLets (currently iPhone only)
HeyLets app is probably the newest on this list, they launched in 2014 and I'm convinced it's going to be the next big thing. HeyLets is a social city guide, powered by locals and built on positivity. I use HeyLets to find new restaurants, salons, spas, fitness classes, parks, and more. You can even create a wish list of places you want to try and follow your favorite local influencers. I love that there are no negative reviews, because it's the same idea behind my blog. I share places I love and generally don't post about a place at all if I don't have something good to say. You can download it from the itunes store and try it here.
Open Table
Open Table is a little different than the other apps in this category because it's used for making restaurant reservations as well as looking up restaurants and reviews. Some of my favorite features include the ability to search for nearby restaurants with reservations based on your GPS location, collect points to redeem toward gift cards, read and post reviews, and make lists of your favorite restaurants.
Urban Spoon (recently sold to Zomato)
Urban Spoon is another of my favorites for reviews, and I've found it to be more credible than some sites and apps because it's so popular with bloggers. I also love Urban Spoon because of their blogger program. If you sign up as a blogger, you can embed a spoon back link into your blog posts with a simple HTML tag. This automatically creates a post on Urban Spoon linking back to your blog. It takes almost no time at all, and I've found it generates a lot of traffic. I also browse the recent blog posts on the site to find out about the newest restaurants. You can view the Boston Blogger Leader Board here.
Social Media Apps:
Twitter is a great source for finding and sharing content, as well as connecting with other bloggers and social media influencers. Make sure to use hashtags so that people searching for a particular topic will find your posts, and participate in twitter chats to gain more exposure.
I love Instagram for many of the same reasons as twitter, it's a great resource for connecting with other bloggers and influencers, and getting your content out there. It can be a little harder to redirect people to your blog because of the inability to include links in posts, but there are ways around that including: sharing on twitter and facebook where the link will post and directing people the link in your profile. Hashtags are even more popular on instagram and can help generate followers and more likes on your posts. Some of the most popular include #instagood, #picoftheday, #tagforlikes, #follow, and #igers
What are your favorite apps and tips and tricks for using them successfully? Let me know in the comments section!
I didn't know that about Urban Spoon. That is good to know and I'll have to try it (not that I write restaurant reviews that often but for when I do).
ReplyDelete