Page 62 - The Content Code: Six essential strategies to ignite your content, your marketing, and your business - PDFDrive.com

13. Focus on feedback and reviews.16
Another important form of social transmission is feedback and reviews. Reviews
offer powerful “social proof” that can make or break a business. This concept is
covered extensively in Chapter 9 but in short, social proof is an accumulation of
the clues in our environment we use to make decisions when we don’t know the
truth. Reviews are a good example of this idea. If we have never visited a
business before, we may turn to this crowd-sourced content to decide whether to
buy something or not.

For many businesses, online reviews are a high-stakes component of
consumer decision-making. Car shoppers, for example, are increasingly relying
on Yelp and other ratings sites. Nielsen reports17 that 84 percent of people say
that online reviews influence their buying decision. These reviewers can even
gain celebrity status as their opinions reverberate throughout Twitter, Facebook,
and beyond.

The key with this tactic is to have a rock-solid internal process for capturing
and maintaining a steady stream of customers willing to write reviews.
Understandably, many of your frontline sales personnel may feel awkward about
asking for a review, but you can put it in a way that makes the customer
comfortable: “Our business is based on referrals. Would you take a moment to
visit Yelp and refer us to your friends and family?” This is a great start to your
internal process, but it’s only the beginning.

Here are several ways to improve social transmission through Yelp and other
review sites:

Designate someone to take ownership of your implementation plan.
This person is in charge of your online reputation and is responsible for
getting grassroots participation from your staff, as well as monitoring and
responding to the community.
Use signage and memos. Create awareness with your customers and your
staff. Display “Love Us on Yelp!” signs throughout the store—entryways,
sales offices, customer waiting area, customer service, and check-out. Give
customers a card to take with them that reminds them you’re on Yelp. Put
memos on paychecks, repair orders, and invoices to create awareness.
Reach out to your raving fans. Every salesperson has them, especially
those who have been with you a long time. Ask fans to share an honest
review—don’t push for positive reviews, per se. Many brands fail to feature
testimonials and brand evangelists on their websites and social media
profiles. People love attention and special treatment—the customers you
feature will likely become even stronger supporters of your brand. Plus,