The Importance of ‘Social’ Reviews and Activity for your Business
Customer reviews and ratings are nothing new in the 21st century.
The concept of a real person describing how they feel about a particular brand or company (or rating them in some fashion) has been taking place even before the mighty interweb began to dominate our lifestyles.
What’s different about today, is that with the increasing use of the web and social media in everyday life, it’s become easier than ever to connect, discuss and share our opinions with others around us (including a brand itself) – which ultimately means we have a stronger ability to influence onlookers and not have our experiences fall on def ears. The hottest search engines – including Google – have also taken this into consideration in their page ranking algorithms (more on that below.)
But first before I get into things…let’s take a step back so we can see the big picture.
Before…
Before the emergence of the web and recently the social media explosion, companies would market their products to consumers and the relationship was generally a one way street. To simplify things, we would watch an advertisement or commercial and then make a decision on whether to purchase that product. To dig a bit deeper, we may base our purchasing decisions on a salesperson (not the most reliable) or if we were lucky, direct word of mouth from someone who purchased that product. Consumer reports and magazines were handy, but were often biased and in general, a pain in the a**.
Due to inability to screen products through trusted sources, consumer purchases oftentimes didn’t live up to the advertising – as a result leaving customers dissatisfied. Other than telling our friends and family about our experiences (good or bad) we were left with little influence or warning for others – other than direct word of mouth. Also, the ability to interact with a brand itself was almost impossible. Until…dun dun dun!
The Era of Social
Now fast forward to the age where almost everything we partake in has the ability to be seen and heard by our friends, extended network and people we’ve never met before in our lives.
We all understand that the power of social media is the ability to connect with others. From the Business to Consumer perspective – this means there’s a giant forum where potential and former consumers can discuss a particular product or service and share their experiences (both good and bad). And in almost EVERY scenario it has been proven that a potential customer will choose the opinions of someone they know or someone in a similar situation rather than the advertisement of a product.
Ninety percent or consumers surveyed noted that they trust recommendations from people they know, and 70 percent trusted consumer opinions posted online. – NielsonWire
Let’s put it this way, would you rather base your decision on choosing a particular restaurant from someone who just recently ate their OR the actor in the commercial who is getting paid to smile and rub his belly? Now, potential customers are able to easily find others who’ve undergone an identical purchasing decison with the exact same brand or organization.
Some of your favorite companies are also starting to take notice about this new style of prospective purchasing behaviour – to the point where they’re almost faking the concept of a real recommendation. Take for example Gillete’s latest theme of “hitting the streets” for the ”Gillete Pro Glide Challenge“. (If you recall Gillete’s old commercials – they included Mr. Universe-type actors enjoying the high life). However here, the message they’re conveying is “here’s an everyday Joe from suburbia telling you that our product is superior, not just us”. Have a look:
Windows’ latest commercial theme “Windows 7 was my idea” has a similar concept – Actors portrayed as real people simply giving you some friendly advice.
While these commercial may be smart, in my opinion the idea should be to create a product which actually leaves real customers satisfied and willing to share their positive reviews with others. If you’re already creating a product which is making your customers happy, you’re already on the right path. The next step would be to engage with them on a meaningful and personal level and offer a forum for them to share their experiences. Believe me, when someone has an above average experience with a product they want to tell the world about it.
Social Media and Search Engine Relevance
If this all seems hoky-poky to you, be sure to note that Google and other popular search engines recently incorporated “Social Data” into their search algorithms:
Both Bing and Google admitted in interviews that their search results are positively affected by social signals, such as Tweets, Facebook Likes, and +1s.
This is potentially great news for new businesses trying to achieve visibility in search. It’s less great news for sites that rely heavily on link buying (illegal, but hard to catch), producing huge volumes of borderline-useless content (long-tail, content farm approach), or just really old domains (previously an SEO trump card). – Shane Snow, Mashable.com
For your business, that means, the more likes, +1s, comments, RT’s and social “buzz” = higher page position. Google pulls customer reviews from various sources and industries – all which affect the ever coveted page rank.
In conclusion, a monumental shift is occurring in the marketing world where consumers are becoming far more savvy in researching companies and products online before making a decision to purchase. Mediums like social media are making it much easier to interact with others and discover the truth about any topic or organization. Providing an avenue for users to share their experiences with your products and services will have a stronger influence on your potential customers and how visible your page will appear on popular search engines – ultimately affecting your bottom line.
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