As long as you don’t handle negative reviews the way Alice Hoffman did, they remain the most effective way to reach and engage potential buyers, eclipsing Twitter and Facebook, according to Ad Age‘s Abbey Klaasen. Reviews offer fully explained reactions to products purchased by real customers in contast to the fragmentary telegraphic conclusions posted to Twitter and other social messaging sites.
The challenge for companies is finding a way to listen effectively to buyers when they write reviews on blogs and at commerce sites. Here are the four “right ways to user reviews,” from the article:
- Embrace the feedback — find a way to actually listen and digest the customer’s ideas inside your company.
- Tout your customers’ favorites — they can tell other customers better than you can.
- Incorporate customer service (yes, use reviews to identify problems and solve them for customers).
- Don’t stop there — let reviews grow into communities.
All of these ideas are critical to publishing success, as well.