Product Reviews, Social Media and New Online Buying Trends

The following comes from the Online Marketer Blog:

“Not only are 1 in 4 internet users consulting reviews

before purchasing offline, but they are willing to pay more if the service is

ranked as excellent. It seem that after the year of exuberance that was all

about Facebook and twitter, business is finally getting around to answering the

question of how social media effects ROI.

“..Users that [sic] sort the list of products by customer

ratings spend 41% more than users who search with other methods like popularity

or price… Emails that feature customer review content receive 50% higher

clickthrough rates.”

Here’s the main article, titled Good For

Consumers (And Businesses): Social Media Gets A Glimpse Of Measurable ROI.

So.. for online marketers, it’s now more critical than ever

to be building review/social functions into your Web sites and product pages. Customer service performance counts bigtime, too, of course.

And, as consumers, we have to make sure we maintain clear,

critical thinking when checking product reviews. I’d like to see some some

numbers about the veracity and integrity of online reviews. How much of it is “bro”

reviews? How much of it is genuine? Are really nasty reviews the result of

competitor campaigns? That would be interesting, yet difficult to quantify.