Social Media Reviews: A Beginner’s Guide to Understanding Customer Feedback

Before making a purchase decision, where do customers turn?

A quick scroll through social media. In fact, 93% of consumers say that online reviews influence their buying decisions, and 73% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.

That’s not just a statistic; it’s a fundamental shift in how modern customers shop, evaluate brands, and allocate their spending.

Yet many companies still treat customer reviews as an afterthought. They ignore negative feedback and forget to respond to positive comments. They remain completely invisible in their review ecosystem while competitors capture customer trust and loyalty.

The truth is, managing social media reviews and customer reviews strategically isn’t optional anymore. It’s essential for survival in today’s competitive marketplace.

However, some local businesses remain skeptical about how social media reviews can enhance brand reputation and increase sales. Keep reading to learn more. Ready?

What are social media reviews?

Social media reviews are authentic customer feedback and ratings shared publicly across social platforms. Unlike isolated review sites, social media reviews live within the platforms where people spend their time daily and share their experiences.

These aren’t just star ratings; they include written testimonial social media posts, photos, videos, comments, and direct messages that collectively shape how potential happy customers perceive your business.

The scope of online reviews has expanded dramatically. Customers leave feedback on industry-specific platforms, such as Trustpilot and Yelp, but they also share their experiences through social media posts, stories, and comments on mainstream social networks.

This decentralized approach to reviews means your brand’s reputation is being built and influenced across dozens of touchpoints.

Reasons why social media reviews are important?

According to Google, 

• Facebook has 3.05 billion monthly active users worldwide
• YouTube has 2.70 billion
• X (Twitter) has an average of 611 million

These numbers show that a 360-degree social media strategy has become too big to ignore. Being active on social platforms gives you exposure and the advantage of a bigger audience.

Brands that display social media reviews on their websites can increase conversion rates by up to 270%.

Popular social sites, such as Facebook, TikTok, Google, Yelp, and Airbnb, receive numerous user reviews daily. Consumers justify these social reviews without thinking, and, based on that, jump to a decision.

Let’s look at how online reviews can help increase your user engagement and promote your local business.

People trust social media reviews

As brands, it’s our continuous effort to gain the trust of our customers, because they are looking for authenticity. They are doing business with an individual, not a corporation. Social media is the safest place for your consumers to learn about you.

That is one of the most important reasons people trust social media reviews. For example, brands receive so many comments on Facebook that they don’t even know who they are personally. However, these people are trusted because anyone can see the account and decide whether it’s a genuine ID!

Online reviews help evaluate products

Remember the time you wanted to buy a coffee maker? What helped you make a buying decision? Plenty of user-generated reviews from real-life experiences.

It doesn’t take much to see the social reviews’ worth. While online shopping, there’s no chance to try the product before buying. Moreover, you can’t even see or touch the product except by reading user reviews.

That is when you need to read reviews. They help you decide about the quality of the product and get a real sense of what to expect from it. 

Reviews help you make a decision 

Do you know that eight out of ten millennials never make any purchase decision without reading social media reviews?

Well, this is just about the most active millennials on social platforms. However, different generations of social media users are not far behind. Approximately 77% of people check social reviews before shopping.

Today, businesses without social proof, reviews, and ratings are quite doubtful. It clearly doesn’t stand where your competitors are gaining customer trust and thriving toward their goals.

Social media reviews increase SEO

We are all familiar with how search engines work. While your customers leave social media reviews, they unknowingly use a lot of potential keywords. These keywords help others find the local business and rank higher in search results.

For instance, a famous Chinese restaurant with hundreds of reviews increases its chances of appearing at the top of the search bar. As a result, anyone looking for a restaurant would want to go to that particular Chinese food shop.

Negative reviews are impactful

The best way to deal with negative reviews is not to ignore them; instead, address them directly. When you get bad reviews, that is not the end of the world. Most brands have experienced this, and the impact of negative reviews can be quite beneficial. Moreover, a business with only five-star reviews seems somewhat doubtful.

But how do they turn the tables? Respond to each of them, take immediate action to resolve the issue, and let your users know that their voice matters the most. And when brands do that, consumers feel appreciated and build a relationship.

Grow your brand’s online presence

Do you know that 90% of startups fail? Whether you run an SME or a giant venture, you need to focus on your brand authority on social platforms. Billions of websites compete to stay in the competition, and it’s getting difficult for your brand to reach out to its potential happy customers.

When brands adopt different social media marketing strategies, your reviews on social media can help you build a strong brand reputation. Your social followers can see the difference between you and your contemporaries.

How to find social media review sites

We already know about plenty of review sites. According to statistics, 73% of users only pay attention to reviews written in the last month, and 50% of them only read reviews posted in the last two weeks.

So your local business needs real-time updated social media marketing reviews. Therefore, if you’re running a website, it’s essential to review all reviews and display the most recent ones automatically. Imagine keeping track of Google, Facebook, Yelp, Airbnb, Booking.com, and all other social review platforms to check your latest review posts.

Is that even practically possible? Well, we suggest you utilize WP Social Ninja, it will perform like your social media review management tool. It will embed reviews from over 10 social sites, including Facebook reviews, Google reviews, WooCommerce reviews, and many other popular platforms.

You can even update them in real-time. Moreover, you can also turn off the auto-syncing and do it manually!

How to ask for social media reviews

Once you set up top-notch social handles, the next step is to get social reviews and ratings, or you can even ask for reviews. However, you can’t force your customers to send review requests whenever they visit your site. There are other innovative ways to get reviews.

You can send review requests via email. So, it’s easy for them to reach out to you, and they can post a review by simply clicking the send button. 

Next, you can add CTAs and links to the social sites. Your customers can click on the link and visit the website directly to leave feedback.

Lastly, brands can add a notification popup. Embedding popups to your website can encourage your customers to share their experiences and give ratings based on their experiences. Even anyone can collect user feedback by using the Testimonial widget.

Social media reviews: A case study

A social media review post can significantly impact or damage your brand. The way you interact with your customers says a lot about your brand. It enhances your reputation and fosters a strong bond between you and your customer.

If you have a social media presence, it allows you to respond immediately to any customer queries. Big labels have separate social handles, offering a comfortable platform for users to reach out to them.

One of the leading streaming services, Spotify, has excellent social media review examples. This company has top-notch customer care. Along with its main social handle, Spotify has a dedicated X (Twitter) account to update followers on its current status.

With these accounts, followers are requesting assistance and providing reviews to drive overall improvements.

Last words

No matter how good the product is, your potential customers are researching whether to go with you or not. It might scare you to see how many people are talking about you online. 

However, not everything they read is shared by you. Some is word-of-mouth marketing by your existing consumers. The best part is that businesses with reviews and recommendations instantly create trust and authenticity.

Moreover, users’ positive reviews of the products and services have a significant impact on attracting new customers. They can easily get convinced that it’s a genuine business with real reviews. Clearly, a local business without reviews and testimonial social media posts doesn’t even stand out and is a big no for customers.

However, your business needs social media handles to exhibit reviews on social media. Unless you run legit social channels, customers can’t keep faith in you and will more likely move to one of your competitors with better social authority.

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