Image: Pexels 

Reviews can be a major factor in the decision process for many shoppers. Especially when they’re shopping online and they can’t physically touch or test out what they’re buying, and there are so many other options available.

If you’re looking for ways to use reviews and customer feedback to boost sales for your online business, then you might be wondering whether it’s worth focusing on product reviews or getting your customers to talk about your business on social media.

In this article, we’ve compared product reviews and social media commentary to find out which matters more.

 

The importance of online reviews

Positive, glowing reviews are one of the most valuable assets for a company looking to grow its customer base and increase sales. They can help a business to:

• Increase awareness of the business and products 
• Improve onsite search engine optimization
• Build trust with potential customers
• Provide social proof that the business and products are worth investing in. 

Why are product reviews important? 

Product reviews are a useful tool for the final stage of your sales process — someone’s made it to your website and is considering your products. You can spend a lot of time improving and optimizing your product pages, but one of the best ways to convert shoppers is to include product reviews. 

While your product description can cover all the main features and points, it’s also useful for shoppers to be able to read about the products from other people that have purchased and used them. They’ll get a better insight into the benefits and uses of the product, and they’ll have a clearer idea of whether it’s the right product for them. This not only increases your conversion rate but can also reduce the number of returns. 

Reviews can also help you to give customers a better experience with your business. You’ll get an insight into any common issues that you need to resolve, and any positives about products that are worth promoting or adding to the product description. 

The reviews themselves can also improve your product page SEO. New reviews mean that you’re regularly updating and adding to the content on your product pages, which can improve your ranking in search engine results. Plus, the reviews will include relevant keywords and search terms that other shoppers might be using to search for those products as well. 

Positive reviews are also great content for sharing on social media. They’ll help you to engage with your customers and provide social proof outside of your own website. 

 

Managing product reviews

You need to make it as easy as possible to add and monitor reviews so that it doesn’t take up much time but you have some control over what is published. For example, an ecommerce platform such as OpenCart allows you to gather product reviews and manually review and approve them. Other platforms such as WooCommerce also allow ratings, which can add even more value to your product pages. 

For more advanced customer feedback monitoring use something like Feefo, which you can use to gather and analyze reviews. 

 

What’s the benefit of social media commentary? 

Social media is an important marketing channel for businesses. It’s a great way to boost your online presence and connect with your target audience, but it’s also important to get other people talking about you on social media. 

If you can encourage your customers to talk about your business on their own social media accounts you can reach a much wider audience. This is why many businesses will work with influencers so that they can get their brand in front of more people that they might not be able to access otherwise and increase awareness. And people trust recommendations from the people that they follow on social media, even if they don’t know them. 

Seeing reviews and testimonials from real customers on social media immediately signals that your business is trustworthy and legitimate. Many shoppers will research a company thoroughly before buying, especially for more expensive products, and this means checking out their social media channels and what people are saying about them. 

Social media commentary can help to increase awareness of your business and also persuade people to buy from you.

 

Managing social media commentary 

It’s important to monitor any mentions or interactions with your business on social media, which can be very time-consuming. Negative comments or reviews can’t be ignored and need to be handled in the right way to show that you listen to feedback and can improve your service. 

To keep track of mentions and engagements use a tool like Mention so that you can monitor when people are talking about your business and take action. 

 

Product reviews vs social media commentary

Both product reviews and social media commentary are really important to online businesses. Getting people talking about your business on social media is going to increase awareness and help you to connect with more potential customers. However, once those people move from social media to your own website, product reviews are going to be crucial to improving your conversion rate. 

It’s fairly simple to set up a review process for gathering product reviews on your site. While monitoring and engaging with social media commentary can be more time-consuming. However, having a social media presence that builds trust with your audience should be a priority if you’re trying to grow your business.  

 

Author: Rodney Laws

Rodney Laws is an online entrepreneur who has been building online businesses for over a decade. Rodney uses his experience to help fellow entrepreneurs start and run their own companies. Find out how he can help you by visiting EcommercePlatforms.io or heading over to @EcomPlatformsio.