Did you know that positive reviews can make up 73% of customers who research and trust your business? 

Reviews are a significant part of your business that can help you boost your sales and get your customers to trust you more. Having good reviews can be great for your business, and bad reviews can hurt you if they are not handled correctly. When growing your business, reviews can be the backbone of your growth campaign. 

Importance of Reviews

Reviews hold a lot of importance over your business and can make or break your customer engagement. 

Positive reviews make up a large part of your customer’s trust and their overall decision-making when they want to purchase a product or service from your business. Reviews are going to be the first thing that people will look at when they research your business.

Due to this, reviews are great for building up your brand and getting the notoriety that you might be looking for. Reviews that are left in the comments of your posts and on your Facebook business account can help build that credibility. 

While good reviews are great, bad reviews can also help you learn where your business is struggling and where you can improve. If you handle bad reviews in a satisfying way for customers, that can work wonders just like good reviews do. All reviews are helpful to make your business better, making you look like a strong and trustworthy brand. 

Which Social Media Platforms to Focus on

There are specific platforms that work better than others for your business to share and present your reviews. Facebook and Google reviews are going to be the two main platforms that will help you see and manage reviews from your customers.

Facebook

You can start your journey to reviews on Facebook by setting up your business profile that people can view and leave reviews on. 

A Facebook business profile is a great way to show off your business and gain more attention. Your business needs to gain the necessary exposure to help boost sales and revenue, which Facebook can help with. The tools and applications that Facebook offers to small businesses are great for those who want to grow and connect with new customers. 

People can leave reviews on your business profile and posts that you have shared. This allows you to promote good reviews on the face of your profile, showing people how your brand is successful and what makes it special for them to use. You must also take notice of bad reviews and use them to your advantage so they do not reflect your brand poorly. A great way to do so is to respond to the bad review and fix the issue while offering something extra for them to receive so people know that you care about them as customers and are willing to go above and beyond for them. Showing you care makes all reviews carry more weight for you and help promote your business.

A great way to gain more reviews is to encourage customers to leave reviews for your business. You can offer discounts and deals for making reviews so both you and the customer are rewarded. The key is to not encourage customers to leave good reviews but to have them leave a review that can either be good or bad while still offering them the deal. That is because asking for good reviews while offering a gift can seem like you are bribing them. If you just ask for a review, good or bad, you can get an honest opinion of your company and benefit your customer. 

Google

Google reviews are just as important as Facebook reviews due to the amount of viewership that your business can get from Google. 

If someone is looking on Google maps and sees your business, they might click on it to learn more. When they click it, reviews will pop up and they will immediately see what other customers are saying about your business. A great way to start getting good reviews is by verifying your business online so that everything is up-to-date. If your operating hours, location, website, and everything is current, then people will see your business is present and trustworthy. 

Another great way for people to see your good reviews is to label them as helpful. This can show people good reviews quickly so they will see the bright side of your brand and start the process of trusting it early on. 

However, this will not eliminate bad reviews, making it important to address them and try and show new customers that you care about every customer’s experience. 

Similar to Facebook reviews, you can always encourage people to go and leave a review by giving them a gift for participating. This would help you get positive reviews to promote on Google and bad ones to see how your business can improve while customers get something out of it as well. 

Use Social Media to Gain More Reviews

Do you need help managing your reviews? Thankfully, Practina can help you manage and see all your reviews in one place.

Practina is a social media marketing tool that may work for you. The system will help you plan out your posts ahead of time, design your planned posts with our team, give you analytics, and give suggestions to help you create new and relevant content that will make your business strong. It also has the review center, where it takes your Facebook, Google, and Yelp reviews and puts them all in one place.