The Battle for Good Online Reviews

Online reviews are a big business today. Some companies are even going as far as paying $200 for fake reviews to paint their businesses in a good light for online advertising and improve SEO. Unfortunately, fake reviews and soliciting some types of reviews can be counterproductive for businesses. So how can companies overcome these challenges and still beat competitors when marketing on the web?

Text testimonials on business’ own websites have little credibility these days due to how easy they are to fabricate. This has made third party review sites and video testimonials more popular, but of course they can be manipulated too.

ABC News recently reported on Yelp’s efforts to combat fake reviews and publicly call out those that try to fool the system. Using top secret filters, Yelp is proactively hunting down those working the system and slamming them on the Internet – talk about backfiring.

Some of the tips Yelp and CNET have published on identifying fake reviews include:

·         Lack of detail

·         Stock photos

·         Use of company employees in video

·         Age of company and reviews not matching

·         All positive and no negative

·         Anonymous user names

If a company has to fake reviews, what type of ethics, product, and service would you assume they have? You might have a great product or service, so don’t kill it by getting busted for faking reviews and lose credibility and take a hit to your online reputation.

So what can hungry businesses do to win at online advertising?
If reviews are a must, work harder to earn and solicit legitimate feedback, testimonials, and referrals. This can be done by incentivizing consumers to call in via dedicated toll free numbers as well as offering rewards for social sharing or uploading video testimonials and reviews to social media profiles. However, don’t confuse survey data coming in from toll free lines or emails with objective and genuine customer satisfaction ratings if you are providing incentives for consumers to do so.