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Social media and networking sites such as Twitter get all the headlines, but the real news is about how today’s socialized Internet has empowered the public to truly understand its own power. With a simple mouse click and a brief paragraph of copy, anyone with access to a keyboard can influence not only the actions of businesses, but also the decisions of other consumers. The result is that a growing number of Net users say they respect the opinions of their peers -- even peers that they’ve never met in person – more than almost anyone else.
Haven’t we all had an experience where, after researching a product in Consumer Reports and other resources, the deciding factor on what to buy was a thumbs-up or -down from a friend or family member? The very successful Angie’s List is a perfect example of personal recommendations outweighing the opinion of so-called experts. That’s the concept behind the sweeping popularity of consumer review websites.
If you haven’t checked to see what your customers are writing about your service online, you’re missing out on an easy (and free) source of valuable research. In particular, look for city-specific sites like Cityvoter.com where local residents can easily learn about their neighbors’ preferences. For a owner, it’s the closest you’ll come to eavesdropping as a customer tells a friend about her experience with your business.
The best example of this type of site is Yelp.com, the fastest growing consumer review resource on the web. More than 20 million people every month post city-specific assessments of various services, restaurants, stores, and even churches, Business owners can create their own page to describe services, offer coupons or announce upcoming sales, and use a dashboard to track the page’s effectiveness.
Whether your company gets a positive or negative review, consider e-mailing or publicly posting a response. That type of outreach and interaction gets noticed – and shared – online and by word-of-mouth. Yelpers often update their reviews, so it’s quite possible to change a bad review into a good one.
Of course, that’s always been true, but first you have to know what your customers are saying.