What You Need to Know: Online Review Management and Marketing in 2018

[Garrett Sussman]

What You Need to Know: Online Review Management and Marketing in 2018

Time magazine has some advice for you.

Don't trust reviews.

Their inflammatory article states you shouldn't trust positive or negative reviews. Time's reasoning goes something like this:

"By outing dubious, planted, solicited, and otherwise inauthentic reviews, consumers will have more reason to trust the reviews that remain, the thinking goes. But judging on how prevalent the manipulation seems to be, it’s arguable that online user ratings and reviews are less trustworthy than ever."

They've published articles like these before.

To be fair, they're not suggesting there's something inherently wrong with reviews themselves. Their message seems to be focused on the corruption and manipulation of reviews that's prevalent in many (most?) industries.

Are reviews becoming less important in 2018?

It certainly sounds that way, doesn't it?

On the surface, this seems like a reasonable argument. There's just one problem with Time's doom and gloom scenario though.

Customers aren't buying it.

When it comes to online reviews customers make their own decisions. As a whole, they don't seem to agree with Time magazine's opinion of online reviews. Which makes sense when you realize the online review ecosystem continues to evolve.

Most organizations aren't prepared.

Are you?

Here's how online review management and marketing is changing in 2018.

In the article, Andrew goes on to discuss 3 ways in which ORM is changing in 2018:

#1: Online reviews continue to grow in popularity (Do you believe they are?)


#2: Customers are becoming smarter (Can people identify fake online reviews?)


#3: Online reviews and the coming artificial intelligence war (Can AI detect or create fake reviews that can't be distinguished from real ones?)


Read Andrew's full article here.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks Garrett! I always learn something new from the Grade.Us blog posts.
Never knew about the "Flynn Effect" before but makes perfect sense.

I also have never heard the term "opinion spam". We usually say fake reviews but I really like "opinion spam" because that's often exactly what it is!

The graphs and screenshot examples really tell the story here. Kudos to Andrew again for a post that's important for people in our space to read!

 

[Garrett Sussman]

Thanks, Linda!

I agree, Andrew puts forth some great ideas. I wasn't familiar with the Flynn effect until I read Andrew's article.