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<\/a>\u00a0<\/a><\/div>\n<\/p>\n
With all the noise online today, people are tuning out things like advertisements and promotions from brands. When considering a product or service, what\u2019s more important to them are the thoughts and opinions of their friends\u2014especially in social media.\u00a0 Reviews have become the first go-to resource for most people searching for something online these days, so brands need to pay attention to this trend.<\/p>\n
For instance, when you\u2019re looking at books to read on Amazon, don\u2019t you check out the reviews to see what others thought about the book before you hit the \u201cAdd to Cart\u201d button? It\u2019s human nature to seek out the opinions of others who have tried something\u2014from the books we read to the music we listen to\u2014and especially big-ticket purchases.<\/p>\n
Finding a way to allow users to issue opinions on a product or service\u2014even giving them a way to choose from a database of answers, ranging from positive to neutral to negative\u2014can increase your brand\u2019s credibility online, especially if you make it easy to share this information on their favorite social network.<\/p>\n
The numbers are pretty compelling. For example, a recent Dimensional Research survey sponsored by\u00a0Zendesk<\/a>\u00a0reveals that an overwhelming majority of customers are influenced by online reviews, both good and bad. In fact, 90% of respondents claimed that positive reviews had an impact, while 86% said their buying decisions were influenced by negative reviews. Those are pretty hard numbers to ignore.<\/p>\n However, many businesses are afraid that offering reviews and opinions will open up a potential \u201ccan of worms.\u201d That\u2019s understandable, but the social explosion has pretty much moved brand perception away from the company and into the consumer\u2019s hands anyway. Transparency isn\u2019t an option anymore\u2014people will find out the good, bad and ugly by other means when doing their research. If you stand behind your product or service, giving your customers the option of \u201cgrading\u201d your brand from the first interaction with you will help you in your quest to build the social brand advocacy that is so important.<\/p>\n Yes, it can be a scary thought. What if they say something bad about you? That\u2019s why you need to think over your strategy carefully. Opening up this kind of interaction with your brand requires oversight and diligence. You need to stay on top of what people are saying and reach out to those who have a negative experience right away. Critics are a valuable resource\u2026 I advise seeking them out, and turning them into advocates. Nothing will help vault your brand to the forefront of consumer minds like being open to criticism.<\/p>\n The ability to openly evaluate companies is the wave of the future. Help your customers see how your brand stacks up\u2014give them an easy way to share their opinion socially\u2014and you\u2019ll have one more way to positively influence your brand perception in the marketplace and increase your\u00a0Return on Relationship<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 With all the noise online today, people are tuning out things like advertisements and promotions from brands. When considering a product or service, what\u2019s more important to them are the thoughts and opinions of their friends\u2014especially in social media.\u00a0 Reviews have become the first go-to resource for most people searching for something … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,7],"tags":[1370,1458,57,394,308,480],"class_list":["post-5017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-tedrubin","tag-ronr","tag-tedrubin-2","tag-b2b-marketing","tag-business","tag-engagement","tag-return-on-relationship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5017"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5018,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5017\/revisions\/5018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}