Consumers Trust Online Reviews As Much As Personal Recommendations

The recent (2012) Search Engine Land’s Local Consumer Review Survey shows that since 2010, consumers are more likely to use the Internet to find local businesses, and they are doing it more often.  They are also just as likely to turn to the internet, and trust online reviews as they are to ask for personal recommendations about local businesses.

  • 85% of consumers surveyed have used the internet to find a local business in the past 12 months. This number is up from 79% in 2010.
  • The majority of consumers surveyed use online reviews to make spending decisions. 27% of consumers are regularly reading online reviews, while another 49% are occasional readers.
  • 65% of consumers (up from 58% in 2010) are reading between 2-10 reviews when researching local businesses.
  • 72% of consumers trust online reviews as they do to personal recommendations.
  • 58% of consumers trust a business which has positive online reviews (up from 55% in 2010)
  • 52% of consumers are more likely to use a local business if they have positive reviews
  • 28% of consumers cite location &/or price as main decision making factor (down from. 38% in 2010)

If you own a business, the statistics are clear, you need a strong online presence, you also need to monitor reviews and be proactive in following up with reviewers in a positive and constructive manner.

Reviews, even negative have always been opportunities to learn, to improve and create fans, do not ignore them, acknowledge reviewers, make things right if you can, pledge to improve, be transparent and truthful

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4 Common LinkedIn Profile Mistakes

With the new year comes the time to clean up our desks, desktops, files…  and start the year on the right foot.

In the digital era and the social media era, we need to add a few tasks to start the year on the right foot.  It’s time to take another look at our social media profiles, clean them up, bring them up to date, optimize them and get them ready to work harder for us.

Let’s start with LinkedIn.  With an exponential user growth, I see the same mistakes over and over again, let’s start with some basic mistakes I see over and over again:

4 common LinkedIn profile mistakes

1-Professional headline:

Your professional headline is your brand, it appears next or under your name everywhere your name appears, in searches, groups… With your name, it’s the first thing users read when they come across your name, make it count.  Your professional headline will determine if someone will merely glance at your name or want to click on it and read your profile.  It’s who you are, what you want to be.

By default, LinkedIn will put in your last job title, is that who you are, what you want to be?  Will that entice potential business partners or employers to take a closer look at your profile?

Take as much time as you need, craft a headline people will remember and entice them to want to know more about you, tell them how you can help them

2-Profile picture:

Social media is a very public space.  Chances are, if you are on LinkedIn, you want to be seen and found, you want to network.

Would you go to a networking event with a mask on your face?  Probably not, then why are you doing it on LinkedIn?

Posting a professional photograph has a number of advantages.

  • Potential contacts do not like incomplete profiles, incomplete profiles send a message that you have something to hide
  • A photo helps potential contact remember you
  • A photo helps identify you are who you say you are
  • A photo builds trust

3-Public profile

Your “Public profile” is actually a misnomer, it’s your public URL.  Think of LinkedIn as a personal website.  Each website comes with a URL (Unique resource Locator), a unique address that  identify them and allows users to find them on the web.

Your “Public profile” as LinkedIn calls it is your personal URL, the address to your personal profile, a link you can add to your resume, marketing material, business card.

Just as any website address, your URL should be short and memorable.

Why short?  The shorter and the easier to remember, the less contacts and potential contacts will make mistakes (typos) when they search for you and the more likely they are to find your profile.  A short URL is easy to remember, it’s easy to add to your marketing material

By default, a LinkedIn public profile link looks like this:  http://www.linkedin.com/pub/first-lastname/24/9a5/766  Try to remember that one, spell it to a potential contact and have that contact type it without mistake.

LinkedIn allows you to chose a custom (also called vanity) URL, the URL looks like this:  http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/yourname*.

Which one would you rather spell, print or type?

4-Websites

By default, LinkedIn adds “My website”, “My Blog” “Other” as the links to your websites or internet properties.  LinkedIn also offers ways to customize the links.  Use that opportunity to rename them, use your website name, your blog name.  LinkedIn profiles are extremely well optimized for search engines, if you search your name, chances are, your LinkedIn profile will come at the top of the search.

As a bonus, renaming the links with the name of your website or blog will give them a lift in searches (SEO effect)