Online Reviews

Jennifer Laycock posted the other day “Don’t Overlook Reviews in Your Social Media Strategy” at Search Engine Guide. It was about a new report,  “Social Technographics” by Charlene Li at Forrester Research. I followed the link provided to the Forrester website but the report costs $279 to read so all I have is Jennifer’s comments.

The report is based on a survey of 4,475 US adults in December 2006 and 4,556 youth in October 2006; they wanted to learn about on-line social activity.

Jennifer copied a nice bar graph from the report that answered the question “Do you do the following activities at least monthly?” It showed the number 1 activity to be, (at nearly 40%) reading customer ratings and reviews and reading blogs was second at about 22%.

I am not surprised at this number, because I did it myself.  When looking for expensive items, like a wide screen monitor, I care about what other uses have experienced. I looked up my favorite Pizza place, Sal’s  Pizza in Mamaroneck NY (where I grew up)  and found they do not have a website proper but they have tons of positive reviews online!  What a great way to market your business.

Moral of the story, get folks to provide feedback or reviews of your business.  Need help setting it up or any other aspect of local search, let me know. I am here to help.