User-generated content (UGC) is becoming increasingly important for brands looking to establish trust among customers, with 71% of customers agreeing that user-generated reviews make them feel more secure in their decision to purchase one particular product over another. If User Generated Content (UGC) is a new term to you, we highly recommend reading Our Beginners Guide to User Generated Content to learn the basics of user generated content, its various methods, and how it can help your brand organic content and brand recognition.
Today we are doing a deeper dive into one of the most popular forms of user generated content; ratings and reviews and the value they can bring to your brand. Rating and reviews are a crucial part of any brand’s UGC and often a critical part of the digital consumer’s purchasing journey as customers are more likely to trust other customers’ opinions than those of the brand itself. Additionally, according to a study conducted by peopleclaim.com placing customer reviews on a product page increases pageviews 10% over just two days. So, what can your brand do to capitalize on their customer’s opinion and attempt to increase site traffic, implement ratings and reviews into your content marketing strategy?
Table of Contents
What are Ratings and Reviews?
Ratings and reviews are user generated content (UGC) that may provide valuable feedback from customers that can be used to improve a business’ products or services. Ratings refer to the overall score that a customer gives a product or service, usually based on a five-star rating scale. Reviews, on the other hand, are written descriptions from customers about their experience with the product or service.
Why Are Rating and Reviews Important?
According to Nielsen two-thirds of consumers say they trust the opinions of other customers posted online, making this type of content invaluable for your brand. This feedback based UGC is critical in helping businesses understand what their customers think of them and how they can improve. It’s also invaluable in building consumer trust, as it humanizes the company by showing potential customers the experiences real people have had with them.
Overall, ratings and reviews help potential customers decide if they should buy something from a specific online brand – positive ratings and reviews can demonstrate trustworthiness and make it more likely for customers to make purchases. On the flip side, negative ratings and reviews can hurt sales by giving potential customers pause before buying a product or service from that online brand.
For brands, actively managing both ratings and reviews is essential in order to showcase their best products and services, as well as address any customer service issues. Ratings and reviews are also key for improving customer experience and satisfaction – which is becoming increasingly important in the digital age. We suggest developing a strategy that goes beyond simply monitoring your brand rating and reviews, and allows you to gain insights from the voice of your customers and turn the insights into actionable change or your brands products or services to continue to meet or exceed your consumers expectations.
The Benefits of Ratings and Reviews
As consumers become increasingly reliant on the opinions of others when it comes to making decisions, ratings and reviews have become an essential component of building a successful brand. In fact, 84% of people trust online reviews as much as they trust personal recommendations. What other benefits can ratings and reviews hold for your brand? Let’s take a look.
Increased Visibility
Ratings and reviews can increase visibility for your brand in two ways. First, when customers give positive reviews, their words can influence other potential customers to try out your product or service. This type of “word-of-mouth” marketing is invaluable because it’s seen as more authentic than traditional advertising campaigns. Second, search engine algorithms take into account user generated content such as ratings and reviews when determining rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs). The more ratings and reviews you have, the higher your rankings will be in SERPs which increases visibility for your brand.
Enhanced Reputation
High ratings and positive feedback can enhance the reputation of your brand by showing potential customers that there are many happy customers who are satisfied with your products or services. Positive customer experiences can create a sense of trust with potential customers that may not have been possible if there was no customer feedback available. Additionally , millennials say that information received through UGC is trusted 50% more than information from other media sources, including TV, newspapers and magazines. Furthermore, having positive customer experience data also makes it easier to address negative feedback in an effective manner since you already have proof that there are many happy customers who enjoy doing business with you.
Improves Brands SEO
Ratings and reviews are an important part of your SEO strategy because they provide valuable information about your product or services to potential customers. They also help to boost your online presence by providing backlinks to other sites that feature customer reviews. Ratings and reviews also provide social proof of your products or services, which helps convince customers that they can trust the quality of what you are offering. This is especially important for small businesses who may not have as much name recognition as larger companies.
In addition, ratings and reviews serve another purpose in terms of SEO – they help search engines understand what people are looking for. Search engines use algorithms to determine which websites are most relevant for certain queries, therefore having lots of positive ratings and reviews on your website can help improve its ranking in search results. This means that when someone searches for services related to yours, your website will appear higher up in the list of results.
Voice of Customer (VOC) Data Collection
Ratings and reviews provide valuable data that can help you better understand what works well with your target audiences and what needs improvement within your business model. It can also help you identify new trends or changes in customer preferences before they become obvious so that you’re always one step ahead of the competition. This insight is invaluable for optimizing future marketing campaigns or identifying areas where additional resources need to be allocated in order to improve customer satisfaction rates.
Creates Social Proof
When potential customers read through customer reviews, they can get a better sense of what kind of experience they should expect when doing business with you. The more positive customer reviews you have, the more likely people will be to take a chance on your product or service. They’ll also be more likely to share their own positive experiences after making their purchase—which only helps increase customer trust even further.
Builds Trust Through Transparency
Ratings and reviews also give businesses an opportunity to show potential customers that they are transparent about their products or services. Companies can use customer feedback as an opportunity to show how they handle negative situations—and how they make sure their customers are satisfied with their purchases. By responding quickly (and appropriately) to any negative feedback, businesses demonstrate that they care about their customers.
Should Your Brand Implement Ratings and Reviews?
User generated content like ratings and reviews can be an invaluable tool for any business looking to build trust with their target audience. By utilizing UGC, brands can maximize the impact of their content marketing strategy while improving customer experience at the same time. To make sure your brand stays ahead of the curve in today’s rapidly changing digital landscape, it is critical to consider incorporating UGC into your content marketing plan.
Need help creating your brand’s user generated content strategy or optimize your current strategy? Contact the FullMoon Digital team to learn how we can bring your UGC strategy to the next level.
