![\"q1-2010-Get-an-Ear-on-Consumer-Conversations\"](\"https:\/\/leapsparkagency.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2022\/08\/q1-2010-get-an-ear-on-consumer-conversations.jpg\" "\\"q1-2010-Get-an-Ear-on-Consumer-Conversations\\"")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nThere\u2019s an old marketing saying that if someone has a bad experience with your brand, they will tell 20 people, but if someone has a good experience, they will likely only tell one (or sometimes, none at all!). <\/p>\n
\nThanks to social media and the sharing of information by consumers online, however, this is no longer the case. Consumers are likely to share everything\u2014and with a lot more than 20 people. One comment or review can spread to several social sites and be seen by millions almost instantly. <\/p>\n
\nRecent studies have found that seven out of ten consumers have gone online to visit social media websites, such as blogs, message boards and social networking sites, to find consumer information, and roughly half of those consumers use that information to make purchase decisions. If social media is where consumers are getting their information, brands should be making extraordinary efforts to be out there. Having a social presence will help your brand find out what consumers are saying about your products and whether your products are creating good, bad or ugly buzz. The online chatter about your brand may be just what your target audience is looking for to help them make their purchasing decisions. <\/p>\n
\nOnce out in the social media space, one way for your brand to tap into this social conversation is through the use of user reviews and ratings. Sharing opinions about what a brand has to offer through this kind of user- generated content is a popular and growing practice among social media users. In general, consumers relate to each other, and they trust each other\u2019s opinions. As a result, user ratings and reviews play a very large role in consumer purchasing decisions. <\/p>\n
\nWhy should your brand engage with ratings and reviews? For starters \u2026 <\/p>\n
\nConsumers of all kinds are often more than willing to voice their opinions and use the opinions of others in order to help each other decide what products or services to buy. First-time mothers offer a good example of the kind of consumers who find social media and user ratings especially appealing and trustworthy. A soon-to-be new mother spends a great deal of time online researching, reviewing and taking in the advice and experience of other moms. The information she comes across plays a significant role in her purchasing decisions and in determining the brand that will win her as a customer. <\/p>\n
\nThe same can also be said of consumers looking to buy a new car, invest their money, buy a computer, pick up a new cell phone or make any other significant purchase. These potential buyers are online researching all brands, no matter the industry, and social sites are making this information readily available. The means for gaining loyal customers are changing, and offering this kind of user-valued information is becoming an integral part of the more traditional sales process. In addition to bettering your brand\u2019s chances at making a sale, there are other benefits to inviting and evaluating consumer ratings and reviews. One of the biggest is that they give a brand insight into how consumers really feel about the quality of the product or service. Knowing this information enables a brand to respond to its target audience by addressing customer opinions quickly. This insight also gives a brand the chance to react to negative feedback before it becomes a bigger problem. Given all the advantages of social media, the more ways a brand can tap into the power of interactive experiences, the better off it will be. <\/p>\n
\n\u201cThe Impact of Social Media on Consumer Purchasing Behavior.\u201d SPOTMARK: Conference, Exhibitions and Event Marketing. 28 Oct. 2009 <http:\/\/www.sptmrk.com>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There\u2019s an old marketing saying that if someone has a bad experience with your brand, they will tell 20 people, but if someone has a good experience, they will likely only tell one (or sometimes, none at all!). Thanks to social media and the sharing of information by consumers online, however, this is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":1670,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[46],"issue":[27],"collection":[3],"acf":[],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/leapgroupnetwork.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1667"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/leapgroupnetwork.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/leapgroupnetwork.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leapgroupnetwork.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leapgroupnetwork.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/leapgroupnetwork.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leapgroupnetwork.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/leapgroupnetwork.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leapgroupnetwork.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leapgroupnetwork.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1667"},{"taxonomy":"issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leapgroupnetwork.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue?post=1667"},{"taxonomy":"collection","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leapgroupnetwork.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/collection?post=1667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}