PowerReviews Insider

by Yvonne Gando, Social Commerce Analyst

In the infinite space of the blogosphere (as of August 2009, there are over 200,000,000 blogs in existence, with 34% containing opinions about products or brands), who’s playing dirty and who can you trust?

With the announcement of the FTC regulations earlier this month, and the thought-provoking debate that has ensued, articles are surfacing, pointing to the inherent corruption that has been breeding within the blogosphere. CBS News writers Jean-Louis Gassée and Frederic Filloux write: “readers will be good at sorting out the good from the bad. Some blogs – or review systems – will fall into the fishy (or corrupt) category while others will emerge as trusted brands.”

We agree: consumers are smart. And powerful. If they want the truth, not only will they be able to “handle it”, but they will seek it out.

So the question remains, especially when it comes to product reviews, who can you trust?

If you know about our Verified Buyers, Affinity Reviews™, Staff Expert Badges, and our one-review-per-person, per-product rule, then you know that authenticity and credibility drive the technological design process of each of our social commerce solutions.

Our three-pronged approach ensures that your shoppers can trust customer reviews by PowerReviews – 100% of the time.

Verified Buyers
Credible verified buyer badges build trust among shoppers in your customer community. A Verified Buyer is an individual who has purchased the reviewed product through us and submitted their review through a specific process that tracks purchase history. This designation (above, and circled below) is intended to clearly identify those members of our community who are submitting reviews of products that they own.

See an example here:

Affinity Reviews™
Help shoppers easily find reviews from people with similar lifestyles and experience levels. Why is this important? According to the the Edelman Trust Barometer , consumers are likely to trust persons like themselves when it comes to making purchase decisions. Given the highly segmented interests and lifestyles of consumers in most product categories, our Affinity Reviews™ provides a more personalized approach designed to match shoppers with the best product for their needs.

Finally,  you might recall our post earlier this year on our one-review-per-person, per-product rule. We have a team dedicated to identifying, culling, and removing any suspicious reviews, which can include  duplicate reviews or an unusually high volume of reviews submitted by a singular user on the same product. Vigilantly tracking this unusual behavior helps raise red flags that might warrant deeper investigation.

These are just some of the ways PowerReviews helps you empower your customer community with real, credible information that they (and you) can trust.