A company’s online reputation makes or breaks businesses. Word-of-mouth reputation still matters, of course, but almost everyone will search Google for a business name or look at reviews before purchasing goods or services.
All companies have bad reviews. Hopefully, your company gets more good reviews than bad ones. But if you want to make sure people see more positive reviews about your company or products, and fewer negative ones, you’ll either need to spend a lot of time manually filtering through reviews and social media or invest in online reputation management software. One such tool is Bazaarvoice, a shopper engagement platform that amplifies the voices of customers who have already bought your products or used your services.
Bazaarvoice collects user-generated content (UGC) and gives you the ability to display the best reviews on your website, your social media profiles, and other places. If you pay enough, they can also make sure reviews about your products are shoppable, meaning that anyone reading or watching a review can easily and quickly buy the product. If you pay even more, they will make sure samples of your products get into the hands of powerful online reviewers.
Table of Contents
What Is UGC?
It’s probably easiest to explain UGC using examples. Some of them include:
- Video reviews of your products or video demonstrations on how to use your products
- Photos of your customers using or wearing your products or photos showing their quality
- Social media posts about your products or company
- Written reviews of your products on a variety of websites
- Star ratings of your products or company
Studies have shown that people trust reviews from other people more than reviews from journalists, any form of advertising, or a retailer’s own marketing about their product lines. That’s where UGC comes into play. It is the exact opposite of an ad. It’s essentially a digital, word-of-mouth recommendation.
According to Bazaarvoice’s own research, 84% of consumers trust a brand’s own marketing when it contains references to what real users have said, written, photographed, or recorded about their products. Meanwhile, 77% of people are more likely to buy a product they find through other people’s recommendations.
Platforms like Bazaarvoice make it easy to help you weed through all of the user-generated content out there, find positive reviews, and easily integrate that content onto your website, social media, and apps.
Does UGC Really Help Promote Your Brand and Drive Sales?
Yes! Shoppers, especially younger shoppers, prefer to buy products that are recommended by other real users. 84% of Millennials say user-generated content factors into whether they buy a product or not. Half of Generation Z says that social media inspires them to purchase products. So user-generated content can be more effective than paid advertising. And remember, user-generated content costs you nothing.
Online shoppers, especially younger online shoppers, are very concerned about fake reviews. Bazaarvoice is a way to ensure potential customers that reviews are real.
What to Do With User-Generated Content
According to Bazaarvoice, there’s a 144% increase in conversion rate when shoppers engage with UGC. They also state that there’s a 162% lift in revenue per visitor. That’s why you should post UGC on your website and on your social media accounts. You can also add UGC to your website, email newsletters, catalogs, in-store displays, and more.
There’s a reason Amazon allows users to post photos and videos of products. They know it helps the companies on their platform sell goods.
Bazaarvoice doesn’t just give you the reviews and make you display them nicely on your website, social media, or in email newsletters on your own. They have a gallery feature that can virtually display photos and videos by your most loyal customers. You can embed these ready-to-go photo and video galleries wherever you like.
How Does Bazaarvoice Work?
Bazaarvoice has over 12,000 clients and some of them are big names like Nestle, Walmart, and Pepsi. Bazaarvoice also provides paying customers with solid and deep data about the online shopping behavior of over 1.3 billion people. This helps companies better understand why people shop online, what keeps people coming back, how social media can enrich the buying experience, and how to get more online sales from people.
Bazaarvoice makes sure that all of the reviews you use on your website, in your social media, or in your emails are real. Within 72 hours of joining Bazaarvoice, the company will give you only real user-generated content that they could verify. They claim that their techniques and software prevent over 100,000 fake reviews per month.
Bazaarvoice will also help connect you with influencers. The company claims to have a network of over 7 million influencers who will produce real user reviews that you can then use on your own website, social media, or email newsletters. The company will send your products or examples of your services to get them to recognize and try your products or services. 63% of the influencers they contact end up paying to purchase the products they are sent. 87% of influencers recommend the product to friends and family and 50% of influencers start following a brand on social media after being exposed to their products. Plus, when an influencer follows you online, their followers likely will too.
There are influencers for every industry out there. The power of influencers cannot be denied. One study found that 62% of consumers who follow an influencer are more likely to purchase a product after the influencer recommends it. The average return on investment for influencer marketing is $6.50 for every dollar spent.
Perhaps most importantly, Bazaarvoice now includes software that gives people who read or watch a review to buy your product instantly. In other words, Bazaarvoice makes social media shoppable.
How Much Does Bazaarvoice Cost?
The cost of Bazaarvoice depends on how many features you want to purchase. As proof that Bazaarvoice works, it’s hard to find reviews online that clearly state how much Bazaarvoice costs. That’s because Bazaarvoice does a good job monitoring its own reviews. You must contact them through their website or by phone to get an exact quote. Bazaarvoice charges an annual fee. If you find that the fee is too high, there are alternatives that may be cheaper. Other review management software includes TrustPiilot, Powereviews, and reviews.io.
How to Know When You Need Online Reputation Management Software
Not sure if you want to invest in Bazaarvoice or other review software? One way to tell if it’s time to do so is to search online for your own business. You’ll see reviews right away. Are your star ratings very low? Are the reviews of your products on Google or Amazon or Walmart not so great? If you don’t like your answers to these questions, you need some form of review management software.
You may also want to consider investing in software like Bazaarvoice when you are launching a new product or brand. Bazaarvoice can help you get reviews and positive feedback from industry experts or influencers before you launch your product to the general public. For example, Burt’s Bees, the skincare company, launched a new makeup line to the public, they already had over 300 reviews and a nearly perfect five-star rating. That helped boost sales from day one of the new line launch.
Get and Use Real Reviews With SEO Design Chicago’s Help
At SEO Design Chicago, we know the power of online reviews. Just search for our company’s name. You’ll see how many positive reviews we have. It’s not just because we’re great – although we are. It’s because we know the power of online reputation management software.
We are happy to explain options to you and even start or manage the process of reputation management for you.
Reputation management for companies or individuals is as essential as digital marketing for any business or person that relies upon clients to be successful. Your website reputation and online reputation management are subject to the online reviews that your company receives. Any negative reviews, whether they are Facebook reviews, Yelp reviews, Google My Business reviews (GMB reviews), or any other variety, can have detrimental effects on your business if not immediately addressed. A poor online reputation is also detrimental to your search engine optimization, which determines where your business appears on the page of a Google search.
If at any time you need help managing your online reputation, reach out to us!
FAQ:
- What is UGC?
- What is Bazaarvoice?
- How does Bazaarvoice work?
- Why does UGC matter?
- Why do reviews matter?
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