Faking Online Reviews

Maintaining a positive online reputation is vitally important this day in age.  With the amount of research consumers do before making a purchase increasing every month, it is important to have your best foot forward with your online reviews.  Even with small purchases, people want to read multiple reviews and recommendations as they do not want to waste their money on a shoddy service or product.

I've helped many clients improve their online reputation over the years but it still confounds me that people think that they can game the system and put up fake reviews.  With the level of monitoring major websites like Yelp, Insider Pages, Amazon, Google Place and others put into their platforms, it is getting harder and harder to place fake reviews.  Yelp specifically is watching this with a very close eye.  They are watching IP addresses to see if a user is using the same IP address when putting reviews up.  They are also watching the time gap between reviews.  If someone places multiple glowing reviews for the same business, it will get flagged.


With all this monitoring it is very difficult to force positive reviews.  Also, as consumers get smarter, people are savvy enough to see fake reviews.  No product or service is perfect so if you have a 100 plus 5 star reviews no one is going to believe it.  If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, smells like a duck, it is probably a duck. Don't let your reviews be a bunch of lame ducks.



With that said, producing a really strong online reputation takes both an online and offline strategies.  Below are a couple tried and true ways to get the ball rolling.

• Survey Monkey
  
• If you have not used or heard of Survey Monkey, it is a free and useful tool to survey your customers.  How you can use this program is to include a rating feature into the end of the brief survey.  You can link the survey to your Google Place listing or Insider Pages. This way when someone is done filling out the survey they can leave a quick review.

• Email Signature
• A simple and useful way to increase reviews is adding a link to your email signature.  What this will help with is promoting your online reviews to each and every person you email.
• In Store Signage/Handout
• Just like every location should have a Facebook/Twitter sticker in their window, you should be including the review websites you want to promote at your physical location.
• Every small business owner should also be giving a handout to each paying customer that promotes the different areas to put a review.  You can also use a QR code to help them get right to the page that you want to have them review your business.
• LinkedIn
• This is primarily a B2B strategy but it can work in all walks of business.  Getting reviews on LinkedIn is as easy as asking for them.  You can send request and get other people, that you are linked to, to review you and your business.
• Claim & Respond
• Make sure you are claiming all of your listing on the various review sites. This is the first step in making sure you can control the message.
• Responding to both GOOD and BAD reviews is imperative. You must show that you are engaged and are listing to the feedback.

Below are a few pretty important DON'Ts

• DON'T put up your own reviews
• DON'T pay people for reviews
• DON'T con people into leaving a review
• DON'T respond negatively to a negative review
• DON'T do nothing...get started now.  The sooner the better.

For more information about online reviews or digital marketing, please visit www.EricLaylon.com.