‘Elite’ Yelp reviewers hold outsized influence, even after their formal status is lost
Yelp’s restaurant review platform awards an ‘elite’ badge to top contributors, acknowledging their role in shaping user experiences. However, new research by Associate Professor Warut Khern-am-nuai reveals that the influence of these elite reviewers persists even if they lose their official status. Analyzing nearly 9,000 reviewers who lost their elite status between 2006 and 2018, Khern-am-nuai found that while the quality of their reviews declined after losing the badge, their opinions still held more sway than those of non-elite reviewers.
This lasting influence is partly due to Yelp’s display of the number of years a user held elite status, reinforcing the credibility and visibility of these reviewers over time, explains Khern-am-nuai, an associate professor of information systems at McGill Desautels.
