Reviewing is the New Advertising

It should come as no surprise that consumers trust reviews more than they trust advertising. But reviews themselves are becoming a form of advertising and based on results of the recent Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey (pdf) it’s working:

“Recommendations by personal acquaintances and opinions posted by consumers online are the most trusted forms of advertising globally,” the Nielsen survey, the largest of its kind, shows that,  “nine in every ten Internet consumers worldwide (90 percent) trust recommendations from people they know, while seven in every ten (70 percent) trust consumer opinions posted online.”

This leads Trendwatching.com, in its September trend report to proclaim:

“Businesses have to understand and accept that consumers’ decision making processes, which ultimately come down to whether they will buy from you or from someone else, have truly shifted to a new, powerful peer-to-peer arena.”

While consumer-influenced purchasing via reviews and recommendations has been occurring online for some time, it certainly seems to be building to a feverish pitch. The very nature of social media encourages friends and acquaintances to freely share information and, therefore, to make opinions about products and services widely known. Trendwatching.com cites ShoutIT as an example of an application that allows consumers’ reviews to easily appear at once on Facebook, Digg, and Delicious pages.

Trendwatching points to a mind-boggling number of reviews floating around in the webosphere. Reviews are encouraged by online companies using consumer feedback as fodder for increasing repeat website visits.

Says Trendwatching: “Expect every industry, every sector, every product to eventually succumb to reviews.” In fact, think of Twitter as an example of a global real-time reviewing tool.

Perhaps the most curious sub-trend of the reviewing trend is the belief that reviews by ordinary, everyday people are just as trustworthy as reviews by supposed experts. While professional reviewers have their place, reviews written by friends, acquaintances, and “consumers whose lifestyles mirror yours” are regarded as relevant and real.

It’s all part of the transparency trend – consumers want to know all about companies and all about products. Increasingly, they demand the ability to instantly compare product benefits and prices online in an effort to get the best deal. The transparency trend means companies will have to be ever more sensitive to their competitors. They’ll also have to rapidly respond to bad reviews and do online damage control.

As Trendwatching says: “It’s ultimately about character, about finding your voice, about your behavior as a brand that, if in tune with the current zeitgeist of ‘openness’ and ‘generosity’, automatically turns transparency into a benefit instead of a threat.”

About Barry Silverstein

Barry Silverstein is a freelance writer/marketing consultant. In addition to writing for ReveNews, he is a contributing writer to Brandchannel.com, the world’s leading online branding forum. He is the author of three marketing books, The Breakaway Brand (co-author, McGraw-Hill, 2005), Business-to-Business Internet Marketing (Maximum Press, 2003) and Internet Marketing for Technology Companies (Maximum Press, 2003). Barry ran his own Internet and direct marketing agency for twenty years. You can find Barry on Twitter @bdsilv.

Website: http://www.barrysilverstein.com