See all the best of CityVoter lists here...

Last week, CityVoter changed its site navigation to include a new feature called "best of". If you visit CityVoter.com and click on the "best of" feature, you will see what users of our new iphone application see...all of our official best of lists from the contests we've run across the country.

This is a great way for us to give winners more exposure and start introducing our audience to the CityVoter network of "best of lists". Now someone in Los Angeles who knows and loves the Fox HotList can pop over to CityVoter.com and use the San Francisco Chronicle's Baylist to plan a night out with clients.

We're excited that this part of our company vision is starting to unfold. We look forward to announcing a number of other great connections across our network shortly.

If a city is not listed in this section, it is because we do not have a current official list to publish. That doesn't mean you cannot create your own best of list or explore photos of businesses in your area. It just means, we haven't run a contest recently. We're adding new cities and new partners all the time. So, don't fear, we'll have your best of list soon.

New localized mini-sites to celebrate the best businesses

As CityVoter winds down its 2009 contests this fall, we're gearing up our efforts to help celebrate all of this years winners. To do this, we're starting to work with national brands who want to be part of recognizing the best local businesses in their own unique way.

Here are two examples. One we have proposed to travel companies like Westin, Orbitz, and Hertz who want to give travel planners guides to the best businesses. And one for companies like Visa, Mastercard, and Office Depot that want to celebrate business owners who use their products and build deeper relationships with local communities.

Unique local TV programming for the web and on air

This month, we hit a milestone of sorts for CityVoter when we passed more than 15,000 video views on the CityVoter YouTube channel. We use our channel on YouTube to showcase commercials our partners create to promote local contests as well as videos local businesses have made.

Smart local business owners use all kinds of free ways to market themselves and putting a video on CityVoter is another way to do that.

We also use YouTube to showcase the proof-of-concept TV show we put together in Philadelphia. We broke the 30 minute program into segments and designed a study and script that could be used to shoot as a template to be reused in cities across the country. Here's an example:



You read articles all the time about how local television stations are looking to produce more unique local content. This program will get made soon. It's a perfect complement to our "Best of" contests.

A little pep talk from Intuit

I'm happy to give Intuit free publicity here because they made such an encouraging little video that should remind you that you're special and doing something few other people have the guts to do. Enjoy...even if you don't use Quickbooks ;-)

iPhone Giveaway in Dallas For WFAA-List Winners

We’re promoting our new iPhone App in Dallas to help our WFAA-List Winners get as much business as possible.

We’re giving out over $1,000 in iPhone prizes and the contest is open to anyone – here’s how it works:

If you own an iPhone:

1. Download the CityVoter: “Best of” your city App in the iTunes Store
2. Find the profile of the business that referred you on your iPhone
3. Click “share” and send an email to iphone.com
   

If you DON’T own an iPhone:

1. Visit the WFAA-List and click on the Giveaway Icon or click here
2. Fill out the entry form (optional to include the business that referred you)

That’s it! Don’t miss out on this great opportunity!

Click on this button to download the app.

Dallas WFAA-List Winners are now on the iPhone

A few weeks ago, CityVoter and WFAA in Dallas announced the results of the first annual WFAA A-List Contest. If your business finished in the Top 5, congratulations! You're now on the CityVoter "Best of" iPhone App.

What's this mean? It means any time someone with an iPhone is looking for the best businesses in Dallas, they can find you and see all the photos and wonderful recommendations your customers wrote.

To make sure we get the word out and you get more business, we've put together a giveaway (over $1,000 in prizes) and we want YOU to help spread the word. Here’s how you can help your business:

Business Owner Giveaway: The A-List business that refers the most consumers to the giveaway will win a $200 iPhone Gift Card. You can encourage your customers to download the free iPhone App or enter our Giveaway on the WFAA-List Site. When customers enter the giveaways, they should enter you as a referring business.

To help spread the word, you can print posters, email your customers and order our customized business cards with contest details (this offer only available to winners).

This opportunity is only available to Top 5 finalists in the WFAA A-List. Learn more about our contest details.

Here's a link to download the iphone app:

CityVoter's trendy, healthy, newly married audience

Yesterday, I blogged about our promotion with Nature's Cure. It's an opportunity to let people who have voted on CityVoter and have a strong interest in beauty, fashion, and health to get involved in a fun campaign their running to find the next face of Nature's Cure.

It's a meaningful kind of relationship for us because our audience is made up largely of these kinds of consumers. To put a little more data behind that assertion, I threw together a graphic (above/left) that shows the composition of the more than 3 million votes we've received.

It's an engaged group. They've written more than 1 million recommendations on health, food, fashion, and beauty. We'd be thrilled if one of our voters won the Nature's Cure competition. So if you haven't entered...do so now.

Good luck.

Looking for natural beauty...

Every once in a while, we find a perfect partner for our audience. This month, we're excited to promote Nature's Cure as part of their push to find the next face of Nature's Cure. They're giving away $500 and the chance to be the face of their future advertising. Check it out here.

What makes this a great fit for us and Nature's Cure? A huge portion of our audience has voted for fashion, beauty, and shopping categories. We know exactly how to reach them and this is an offer they're going to be thrilled to hear about. Hope you are too? Now smile big for the camera.

Still pushing the Flip

Great time to get a camera you can use to make your own business commercials. If you cannot read the coupon code in this graphic it is FLIP10.

Click here and enter that coupo. This is a great way to make and upload videos to your CityVoter profile.

All you do is:
1) Record your video
2) Upload it to YouTube
3) Enter the YouTube code in the business center

Who wants to go south?

It's hot as a fire pit in the desert sun here in Boston. Ok. It's more humid than hot, but I'm weak and cannot stomach the temps above 80. Makes me melt.

I mention all this, because it seems like a strange time for me to be so excited about places like West Palm Beach and Myrtle Beach, but I am. We just added Raycom's Fox station WFLX and NBC station WMBF to the CityVoter family.

In a few months, we'll be back at you with the best of these beach destinations. We look forward to the contests and sharing the results. These contests will be a huge help for when I start complaining about how cold it is and start planning my winter escape.

We missed our business owners in West Palm. Welcome back.

Welcome Birmingham Fox 6!

This week, CityVoter added Fox6 to our partner list. A fun fact: the history of FOX6 dates back to 1928 when WBRC was a radio station. M.D. Smith, Jr., a local business man, purchased WBRC-AM from J.C. Bell for $2,000. We're thrilled to have them join the CityVoter family, and we're excited to kick off voting this year to discover the best of the Birmingham area. Voting will take place on myfoxal.com. Exciting stuff.

CityVoter's new iPhone application

Last week, CityVoter's iPhone application was made available for download. Click this button to get yours.


Here's a brief description:

You know that great city magazine that has beautiful photos of all the best businesses in your area? They call it the “best of” city edition. We’ve improved that concept and made it available for your iPhone so you can discover the best of your city when you’re on the go. How do we know what’s best? CityVoter’s collected millions of votes from locals across the country in hundreds of different categories. You get to browse winners lists and top 5 results, see photos, recommendations, maps and more.

All of the cities where we've run contests are available. We are going to start marketing the app aggressively in Dallas next week since our contest just ended. You don't need to wait to download the application. If you own an iPhone or an iTouch, just go to iTunes and search for CityVoter.

The Best of Cape Cod Voting on NECN

Last week, we concluded our second annual best of Cape Cod and the Islands competition. This year, NECN ran the contest and more than 1,500 businesses competed to be named the best. Vacationers took time from sunning themselves and showed their support for their favorite summer spots. In just a few short weeks, we collected almost 8,000 votes. We'll be announcing winners the week of August 17th just in time for some last minute Labor Day suggestions.