The outbreak of the coronavirus was a wakeup call to businesses across multiple industries that our business models needed to be more adaptive and able to keep pace with changing consumer demands and behaviors. In the post-COVID marketing sphere, we’ve seen a noticeable shift towards the importance of social proof in the marketing landscape due to shifts in consumer behavior. With these new business insights in mind, we felt it was important to better understand the role played by social media platforms and review directories in the new marketing paradigm.
Wanting to help our community understand how the competition leverages social media profiles and directories in their own marketing, and the pros and cons of doing so, UpCity leveraged Pollfish in a small business survey of 300 United States-based businesses and 300 Canadian businesses. In this survey, we delved into which platforms businesses are using and their reasons for doing so. The survey also explored marketing strategies for the coming year and, given their professional experience on the various platforms, how marketing specialists use social media platforms and directories in their personal lives.
We’ve broken down our findings into the following discussions:
- Social Media Platforms For Business
- Social Media Platforms For Personal Use
- Review Platforms For Business
- Review Platforms For Personal Use
To give our survey results more weight, we’ve drawn additional insight from entrepreneurs, start-ups, and small business owners, giving them the chance to weigh in and provide their own best practices and top priorities when it comes to marketing efforts on social media and review platforms.
Social Media Platforms and Brands
44% of U.S. and Canadian Small Business Leveraged Facebook As Their Most Heavily Used Social Media Platform Pre-COVID-19
Social media platforms were already a priority before the pandemic. According to our survey respondents, the recently rebranded Meta brand represented by Instagram and Facebook dominated social media efforts, with YouTube and LinkedIn rounding out the most used platforms in the time leading up to 2020.
44% – Facebook
16% – Instagram
12% – Youtube
8% – LinkedIn
7% – Twitter
5% – TikTok
5% – Other
3% – Pinterest
Facebook Remains the Most-Used Social Media Channel for Small Business Owners in 2022, Despite Dropping By 2%.
As businesses regain their footing and adapt their marketing strategies to evolving pandemic conditions over the past year that include widespread supply chain disruptions, staffing shortages, cash flow uncertainty, and even mental health challenges, we wanted to explore how social media marketing tactics have been modified in response to COVID-19. What our respondents’ feedback showed is that there was a slight shift within Meta platforms from Facebook to Instagram, but otherwise, businesses didn’t shift their strategies significantly. One interesting trend is the growing popularity of TikTok has resulted in a minimal shift away from Twitter and Pinterest towards the viral video platform.
Facebook has been prioritized as a marketing tool by many businesses largely because of the platform’s user base. Boasting close to 3 billion active users, almost any business can reach its ideal customer persona through the platform. And since the platform acquired Instagram in 2012 and the user base has grown to just over 1 billion active users, the same reach can be achieved using different strategies on the video and visual content platform.
With marketers largely agreeing that video advertising content drives positive ROI, it follows that YouTube and TikTok are platforms marketers are playing significant attention to as customers increase their online video viewing and social media usage during this recovery phase as international responses to COVID-19 shift and evolve with the spread of the pandemic.
Reaching out to marketing professionals and business owners as well as startups and small business executives, we wanted to get more insight into what social media marketing behaviors had changed from prior to the outbreak of the coronavirus to now. It was interesting to see how many of our B2B-focused readers pointed at LinkedIn as their platform of choice for business marketing.
“Our go-to social media platform is LinkedIn. That’s because this is where I find very senior management personnel to connect with via emails, to introduce my business and service offering. The connections on this platform are not interested much in frivolous gossip or mundane issues but are rather serious about their professions being leaders, industry experts, and trailblazers. My marketing team connects with our target market via LinkedIn and this is how we headhunt talent in the industry too. LinkedIn is a great way to learn about trends in Industry related matters and stay connected to hobnob with relevant stakeholders.”
—Thomas Mirmotahari, Founder & CEO, PerkUp
“Prior to Covid, LinkedIn was my top channel for engagement (I also maintain a presence on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram). As the pandemic progressed, I started doing much more virtual networking and connecting with people on LinkedIn, so I bumped up my presence there. It’s still my top channel for engagement and I’ve been able to develop new business relationships on LinkedIn over the last few years.”
—Lidia Varesco Racoma, Brand Strategist & Marketing Designer, Lidia Varesco Design
“Pre-Covid, we focused pretty evenly on Facebook and LinkedIn. Now, we definitely focus much more on LinkedIn. As a B2B, a lot of our clients are found through professional networking. Before Covid, we would frequently go to networking events in person so that we could market ourselves and find connections there. But, when Covid hit and in-person events halted, we shifted all of our networking to LinkedIn. We were able to find decent success through the platform, which is why we primarily focus on it now.”
—Kyle MacDonald, Director of Operations, Force by Mojio
| Before COVID | 2022 | |
|---|---|---|
| 44% | 42% | |
| 16% | 18% | |
| Youtube | 12% | 11% |
| 8% | 8% | |
| 7% | 6% | |
| TikTok | 5% | 7% |
| Other | 5% | 5% |
| 3% | 2% |
A Majority of Respondents Stated That Facebook Helps Them Find More Ways to Interact With Customers and Improve Customer Experience
There’s little in the way of product differentiation in such a highly competitive and crowded economic landscape that we are currently experiencing, that any tool that helps a brand stand out from the competition should be latched onto and levered. This is especially true for many industries dealing with staffing shortages and customers have become used to poor service as the expected norm, not the rare occurrence it should be.
This level of direct engagement is much of the reason advertisers appreciate social media platforms, especially Facebook. The ability to directly interact with customers and potential leads can create positive sentiment and reviews for your brand and prevent the loss of a lead who might engage on Facebook looking for answers in their customer journey. The ability to improve service and engagement will overall improve advertising performance on the platform in terms of lead conversion and brand-building efforts.
Business owners were asked what their favorite social platform was and what benefits it offered. LinkedIn was a solid solution for many, and for many of the same reasons prioritized by our respondents.
“My favorite social media platform to use for my small business is LinkedIn. The reason I find it such an exciting platform for small businesses, especially B2B businesses like myself, is that it’s less competitive than other platforms, the content stays around for days, a simple comment on someone else’s trending post can be content in itself, and the dialogue and user experience are much friendlier than other platforms.”
—Dianna Hann, Founder, Hann Digital
“LinkedIn adds credibility and transparency when you know the people you are meeting, talking to or working with, especially when you know that you have contacts in common. With LinkedIn, you don’t have to wait for a networking event to make meaningful business connections.”
—Paige Arnof-Fenn, Founder & CEO, Mavens & Moguls
“My favorite social media tool is LinkedIn. This platform allows our business to connect with specific users based on their industry, title, and location. For a B2B business, it’s much easier than trying to find these individuals elsewhere.”
—Michael Rarick, CEO, MediaBerry Marketing
(On a scale of 1-10, 1 being the biggest benefit)
More ways to interact with customers/improve customer service
Generates leads and boosts sales
Opportunities to increase brand awareness
Helps promote content
Targeted advertising
Helps increase website traffic
Ability to partner with influencers
Increased opportunities to go viral
Better online reputation monitoring and management
Monitor competitors/Conduct market research
Most of the Respondents Also Noted the Biggest Challenge of Facebook Marketing is That It’s Too Time-Consuming
Marketing as a business function has evolved into an extremely complex segment of the overall business operation model. This is made even more challenging for marketing experts by trends towards lean and efficient operations, often forcing individuals into performing the daily tasks of what in the past would have been the workload of several employees.
While there are numerous software tools that streamline and automate much of the social media management process, someone still has to understand and be able to set the parameters and create the post content for scheduled posts and all of the other social media engagement activities necessary to make it worth the investment of resources. It makes sense then that for a majority of our respondents, operating with minimal staff, keeping up with even a simple business advertising platform such as that offered by Facebook can be a daunting weekly task that takes up a significant amount of time.
Small businesses must often work with the expertise that they have until they are able to cross-skill or dedicate the time for training, so the numbers revealing a difficulty in monitoring the effectiveness of the platform and targeting the right audience could stem from a lack of familiarity with the platform or that Facebook might not be the right platform for the business’s advertising needs.
It’s interesting that many respondents felt the platform was “too ad-heavy,” given how powerful of a content marketing tool Facebook can be when properly leveraged and paired with well-targeted paid advertising. Combined with how many respondents felt a lack of ROI from the platform, it again seems more likely that some businesses are using Facebook not because it matches with their business marketing needs, but because they fear that if their competition is using it and they aren’t that they might be missing an entire demographic. The truth is that it might take a realignment of marketing and advertising efforts on a different platform that better meets the overall needs of the business.
We gathered additional insight from the business community at large about their preferred platforms and asked them to weigh in on the challenges and drawbacks of their choices.
“Personally, I’ve found for the manufacturing and building materials industries YouTube and LinkedIn provided the highest ROI in terms of hours and ad money invested. Videos are extremely dynamic and portray more in a short format than most long articles or posts are able to. People really love to see your product in action: whether that’s industrial equipment or a blender. If a picture is worth a thousand words a video is worth ten thousand. The downside to YouTube specifically is the lack of virality of most industrial content. Those looking for your services many times don’t know what keywords to search for and it can lead to your content getting buried.”
—Jacob Shirar, CEO, Rocky Mountain Finishes
“Our favorite platform is LinkedIn. We use it to promote our content and services. LinkedIn is the best choice because it allows us to easily reach our target audience and establish connections. Businesses who may become our customers are all active on LinkedIn and we’ve managed to find plenty of prospective clients this way. Even if they didn’t purchase our services, they became a very active follower and supporter. However, LinkedIn requires a certain level of consistency. If you want to be seen, you have to be present often which can take a lot of time and resources.”
—Nick Chernets, CEO, Data for SEO
“Tik Tok has made marketing more fun and given companies a chance to get creative. Small businesses can create videos that gain traction and assist in upping their conversion rates. Understanding how the algorithm works will greatly benefit you because, with over 1 billion users, you’re competing with a lot of videos. What people don’t realize is that you must post more than three videos a day for a chance to become viral. And even though that sounds like a high number, the videos can be as short as seven seconds long. My suggestion for your company is to incorporate a writer’s room where the main focus is video content in order to capitalize on this and other video platforms to maximize your advertising efforts on these channels.”
—Jerry Han, Chief Marketing Officer, PrizeRebel
(On a scale of 1-8, 1 being the biggest challenge)
Too time-consuming
Hard to monitor its effectiveness
Too ad-heavy
Security and privacy issues
Difficulty targeting the right audience
Too many negative comments/harmful to brand reputation
Low ROI
Other
80% of Small Business Owners Also Use Facebook In Their Personal Life Outside of Work. 21% of Respondents Primarily Use It to Keep in Touch With Loved Ones.
There’s no arguing that over the years, Facebook has carved out an extremely unique place in our culture. As a social media platform, businesses view the platform as a goldmine of data and potential customers. And while it’s very much that, even marketers in their personal lives would rather prioritize the human connection to family and loved ones that Facebook facilitates over the platform’s marketing potential, according to our respondents.
However, even as they might be first and foremost sharing videos and family pictures with distant family members, a large number of our respondents use their marketing savvy to support other small businesses by interacting with brand content and engaging with those brands in a way that helps to boost visibility and maximize their own experience with the service providers they follow on the social media platform.
Our respondents also show just how interstitial to our social experience Facebook has become by prioritizing group and community memberships on the platform or using the channels offered on the platform as their primary method for accessing news and current events. Whether we prefer it to be or not, Facebook has essentially become a one-stop shop for many users and content creators have recognized this and leveraged it for their own marketing purposes to create as tailored and individualized an experience for every user as possible.
“There’s no question social media is an essential part of business success. Look at the stats: as of 2021, nearly 4.5 billion people use some form of a social media channel and, in 2022, an estimated $56 billion will be spent on social media advertising. So, to me, it’s no surprise that a large percentage of small business owners use Facebook for both business promotion and personal use. Facebook advertising is a powerful tool. When done right, it can get you in front of your exact target audience. In addition, because so many businesses use Facebook for marketing, it’s likely that your competitors are too. In order to break the noise and claim valuable time in front of your desired customers, Facebook is a must.”
—Nicole Denson, Marketing Manager, Big Leap
In gathering insight from the professional community, we found some interesting mixed insight into how business leaders view social media on a personal level, with some preferring to browse content but not engage or post actively otherwise, while others are just as active personally as their brands are professionally. Others seem to be willing to use social media personally, but only in a limited capacity compared to how often they are engaging for business purposes.
“I use LinkedIn in my personal life, every morning and every night. The reason I keep going back to it is because of the generally more positive discussions that take place on this platform. LinkedIn’s bonus feature is that it’s a lot easier than some of the other platforms to build a professional personal brand if that’s a path you want to explore, and you can really wind your business and personal life strategies together in a fun yet professional way. I maintain that LinkedIn is a tool that small business owners shouldn’t be sleeping on.”
—Dianna Hann, Founder, Hann Digital
21% – To keep in touch with family and friends
15% – To post photos or video content
15% – To interact with other user’s content
11% – To find out about new brands
12% – To leave and/or read customer comments and reviews
11% – To join groups or community pages
15% – To stay up-to-date with the latest world/local news
1% – Other
20% of Small Business Owners Do Not Use Social Media in Their Personal Lives, Citing Privacy As the Primary Reason
While many embrace social media as part of their daily routine and a necessary evil to keep in touch with loved ones and family members, some small business experts understand the tools that are in play to gather user data and prefer to remain off of social media in order to keep their own information as private as possible. This can be for any number of reasons, but the rising number of data breaches online where insufficient measures were taken by a 3rd parties to protect user data have left the more cautious community of users hesitant to engage across platforms where their personal data might be exposed.
Others are concerned with the growing negativity found across social media in a general sense, with users resorting to bullying tactics to establish their own opinion over others. This can be especially true in communities built around hobbies or other non-political topics and members bring divisive political opinions into discussions. In these situations, where there is an inability to find a common ground, some users feel the platform harbors excessive negativity or even dangerous hostility and they are avoiding the platform in order to feel safer and avoid such conflict and negativity.
Several members of our professional community summed up their own reasons for avoiding social media.
“The more I use a social media platform for business use, the less I’m inclined to use it for personal use. While I have a personal Instagram account, I haven’t posted on it in months, as opposed to my business account where I post 3-4 times a week. On the other hand, I find myself spending much more time on other platforms like YouTube and TikTok for leisure use.”
—Matt Lambert, Co-Owner, Building the Dream Duluth
“When it comes to my personal life, I rarely use Facebook or any other social media platform. Most of the people I know already have my number and that’s already more than enough for me. Besides, I feel much safer communicating with them this way. As we all know, lots of people also use these social media platforms for different purposes, and I don’t want to fall victim to that.”
—James Wilkinson, CEO, Balance One Supplements
37% – I like to keep my personal life private
14% – I’ll spend too much time on social media
12% – I’m worried about security breaches
5% – I’ve experienced cyberbullying while using the platform
8% – I’ve had safety concerns while using the platform
7% – The comments and posts are too negative
9% – The content is too political and/or offensive
6% – I don’t support the founder of the platform and/or the organization
2% – Other
Social media fills a very specific marketing niche for many businesses and allows brands that might otherwise struggle to reach certain target audience segments an affordable and accessible option for doing so. Our study shows that many benefit from the practice of marketing on social media, especially Facebook, but it’s not necessarily a one-size-fits-all solution. Just like any other marketing channel, not every social media channel will be a perfect fit for your brand and it takes some experimentation and research to land on the right mix to reach your target market most efficiently.
Review Platforms and Brands
Review management and generation are integral to a healthy and well-rounded marketing strategy, as they go a long way in boosting your social proof marketing efforts and essentially acting as free word-of-mouth advertising. In order to properly attract reviews, however, you have to cultivate the platforms where they most often appear. For our respondents, we found that 45% of those surveyed prioritized Google Reviews over other platforms, which makes sense considering the synergy this can create in your SEO efforts to improve search ranking results.
45% of U.S. and Canadian Small Business Leveraged Google Reviews As Their Most Heavily Used Review Platform Pre-COVID-19
45% – Google Reviews
9% – Yelp
4% – Angie’s List
5% – Glassdoor
4% – Home Advisor
3% – Foursquare
3% – Local.com
5% – Trustpilot
4% – Yahoo Local
1% – Insiderpages
10% – Other
6% – TripAdvisor
Google Remains the Most-Used Review Channel For Small Business Owners in 2022, Increasing 2%. Meanwhile, Yelp Saw a 2% Decrease.
It’s no surprise, with the need to increase site traffic and conversions, that brands would double down on reviews on Google in response to COVID-19. Potential consumers are doing much more research into the brands they intend to consume in the post-COVID landscape, so reviews are a great way to help direct this increased traffic.
Many of the other platforms that made this list are likely sourced from the B2C companies on our list, as many are built around the consumer retail experience. The bump in traffic to Local.com makes sense as well, as consumers are staying closer to home due to quarantines and travel restrictions and therefore prioritizing local and small businesses in their community over national chains and larger brands.
We were interested in how business owners were managing their review management strategy post-COVID versus how they had handled it pre-pandemic and the results were fairly consistent with our survey findings.
“Since starting our business in May of 2020, we’ve relied on Trustpilot for online reviews. We chose this company because their reviews drive company growth by allowing us to be seen and to get better. Their business tools in particular allow us to obtain more reviews, promote our best feedback, engage with our customers, and analyze our results to help us improve. So far we haven’t encountered any challenges. We have over 400 5-star reviews on the platform which we’re excited about since we launched less than 2 years ago. Our plan going forward is to continue to use Trustpilot to not only promote our company but to better our product and service.”
—Seb Evans, Co-Founder, Banquist
“The online review platform that matters most to us is Google Reviews, and that hasn’t changed post-COVID. Google Reviews is our favorite platform because of the massive visibility it offers, and because Google search is often your audience’s first impression of you, so cultivating strong reviews there is very important. Google Reviews offers a dose of credibility and authenticity, increasing both brand trust and SEO at the same time.”
—Roy Morejon, President & Co-Founder, Enventys Partners
“One of my favorite review sites is Yelp. It is also the site where our business has been reviewed and where clients have left their impressions about our services and products. In my opinion, long-lasting and mainstream services like Yelp are the most helpful for small businesses. First of all, they attract a large number of Yelp users. Secondly, they draw in the local community which then participates in helping us make our products better. When it comes to pre and post-COVID reviewing sites, I think that people have started to use social media in a greater capacity to leave reviews. For instance, nowadays I find people will make more comments on Facebook than through an official reviewing platform.
—Mike Sheety, Director, That Shirt
| Before COVID | 2022 | |
|---|---|---|
| Google Reviews | 45% | 47% |
| Yelp | 9% | 7% |
| Angie’s List | 4% | 2% |
| Glassdoor | 5% | 4% |
| Home Advisor | 4% | 4% |
| Foursquare | 3% | 2% |
| Local.com | 3% | 4% |
| Trustpilot | 5% | 8% |
| Yahoo Local | 4% | 4% |
| Insiderpages | 1% | 1% |
| Other | 10% | 10% |
| TripAdvisor | 6% | 6% |
A Majority of Respondents Stated That Google Reviews Helps Encourage Positive Online Conversations About Their Brand
With a well-established, curated Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) can work wonders to drive positive engagement with your brand, especially if you maintain an active review generation strategy. An active business profile will be one of the first things that pop up in a search when a customer searches directly for your brand and is more likely to be listed ahead of competitors if you have a good number of positive reviews.
Positive reviews also make potential leads more likely to click on your brand to learn more about your products or services and will lead current customers to both share your brand with their own contacts and even link your brand in their own discussions about their services. This naturally increases your brand visibility and awareness.
Being active in managing your reviews also allows you to address and mitigate the damage and fallout from negative reviews. By being seen addressing poor customer experiences and other concerns, potential customers will see your brand’s willingness to treat them with respect and as consumers whose feedback matters. This will be just as effective a form of lead generation as any other form of paid inbound marketing.
(On a scale of 1-9, 1 being the biggest benefit)
Helps to encourage positive conversations about your brand
Increased online visibility
Uses customer reviews to expand brand awareness/reach
More opportunities to establish trustworthiness
Increases sales
Free advertising and content for your business on another website
Helps prospective customers make decisions
Allows you to monitor and respond to negative reviews
Other
“The surprising thing about this breakdown when I apply this to the B2B world, is the order of perceived value of Google Reviews. Most typically the conversations I’ve had with small businesses around Google Reviews have been about how they are an important aspect of a local SEO strategy to rank higher for keywords and generate website traffic. Typically small businesses want to spend their time and energy on efforts that are closer down the funnel to generate immediate revenue so brand building initiatives are typically less important.”
—Michael Sallander, SVP of Digital Strategy, Antenna Group
It is important to us to understand why brands use the online review site that they do, so we brought the question to our community of business owners.
“My favorite review platform is G2 because they offer a weekly digest of all the reviews they’ve pulled for you, which gives you access to more in-depth insights with regard to your marketing. They also offer widgets so your website can be reviewed by anyone on G2, and those reviews will show up on your site as well as in the weekly digest email.”
—Gergo Vari, CEO, Lensa
“We tend to get most of our testimonials through Trust Pilot and Reseller Ratings since they’re the most user-friendly. Occasionally we will get Yelp, BBB, and Google reviews as well. My personal favorite of all of these platforms is Reseller Ratings. They make it easy for customers to post and to keep their identities anonymous. They also include an order number so we can easily find the customer in our CRM and contact them directly to resolve any issues they bring up in their review.”
—Bret Bonnet, Co-Founder & President, Quality Logo Products Inc.
“Since starting our business in May of 2020, we’ve relied on Trustpilot for online reviews. We chose this company because their reviews drive company growth by allowing us to be seen and to get better. Their business tools in particular allow us to obtain more reviews, promote our best feedback, engage with our customers, and analyze our results to help us improve. So far we haven’t encountered any challenges. We have over 400 5-star reviews on the platform which we’re excited about since we launched less than 2 years ago. Our plan going forward is to continue to use Trustpilot to not only promote our company but to better our product and service.”
—Seb Evans, Co-Founder, Banquist
Most of the Respondents Also Noted the Biggest Challenge of Using Google Reviews is That It’s Difficult Encouraging Customers to Leave Reviews
Review management is a tricky business, especially given how many platforms have rules preventing incentivizing reviews from customers. This doesn’t stop brands with less business integrity from purchasing reviews or taking other measures to secure what appears to be positive feedback. It creates distrust in users and potential leads who see such reviews and creates the impression that reviews cannot truly be trusted. This is why so many consumers seek out at least ten online reviews about a brand in the decision-making process.
Businesses without established review management procedures struggle to keep up with responding to both positive and negative reviews, which can give the impression that the business doesn’t prioritize reviews in their reputation management. Often businesses will not respond to reviews that seem spammy or chock full of false information. In situations where this occurs on platforms a business has no control over, the initial instinct might be to ignore such comments that add nothing to the discussion. However, these are opportunities to inform and educate the audience while also showing that you also actively engage in the review process.
“No surprises here, we’ve been having conversations with clients for years on the challenges with a myopic focus on Google reviews. There is no doubt, the bigger picture here is the compression in the Google environment. There is only discipline and confidence required to get (happy) customers to extoll your virtues, but you have to see the benefits of gathering these reviews in two buckets: One is the fact that some folks might read them, and the other is the lift it gives in SERP (search engine results page). But looking at the Google landscape, the advent of local search ads, and the wake-up call that has driven most businesses to create some Google platform presence, there is no doubt that everyone will see a diminished return.
Compression follows participation, Google fully understands monetization, and I fully expect the Google environment to become more pay-2-play as a result of the demand. You’ll be paying rent soon for a GMB page, prove me wrong. I think the frustration expressed by small businesses around review gathering will only be exacerbated as the density of the competitive crowd increases. So let’s own a new/different space to build consideration like TikTok or Reddit or NextDoor? The review real estate does exist in other places, that have less pressure than the shrinking Google environment.”
—Erik Radle, CEO, Miller Ad Agency
Looking for additional insight into the challenges small businesses face in managing reviews online, we asked our community of business leaders what platforms they use and why.
“One challenge of Yelp is that it has pretty expensive enhanced listings. If you want an enhanced profile – which includes a photo slideshow, a CTA button, and videos – you’ll have to pay an estimated $350. This can be a significant barrier for small businesses. Worse, you’re almost forced to have some sort of presence there because customers can publish reviews on your business’s Yelp listing even if you don’t have an active presence on the platform.”
—Howard Birnbaum, Founder, Magik Flame
“Unfortunately, as with many of the tech giants, moderation of false reviews can pose a challenge. Google Business Profile listings are a hot commodity in the world of online marketing and reputation management, which means you can now buy or out-source negative and positive reviews. Negative review attacks against your business will commonly come from desperate competitors and on the other end of the spectrum, unworthy businesses can often inflate their reputation by purchasing positive reviews for their listing. Google has a support option, but in our experience, it’s more theatrics than effective moderation. Terms of Use violations are rampant on Google and you can highlight those violations in acute detail without much response.”
—Neil Shouse, Esq., Founder, Shouse California Law Group
“Our focus has been on G2 both before and throughout COVID. It can be a challenging space to maintain a profile on, however. Reviews on G2 tend to suffer less from fake reviews or brigading since it’s a smaller world, but this can also make it harder to sell new customers on the value of reviews on the site.”
—Devon Fata, CEO, Pixoul
(On a scale of 1-6, 1 being the most challenging)
Difficulty encouraging customers to leave reviews
Too many competing businesses on the same platform
Customer reviews contain false information
Hard to respond to reviews in a timely manner
Customer reviews look fake or spammy
Other
50% of Small Business Owners Plan on Using Their Preferred Review Site More Frequently in 2022
Companies are starting to accept that many of the shifts in consumer behaviors in the wake of the pandemic are here to stay, an acceptance we can gauge in how many businesses are doubling down on changes to their own marketing strategies. Out of the 600 respondents to our survey, only 6% plan to reduce their review management efforts on their preferred review site in the coming year. Of the remaining respondents, half intend to increase their activity and leverage their platform of choice more, while the remainder intends to at least maintain current activity levels.
50% – I plan to use it more
44% – I plan to use it about the same amount of time as I do now
6% – I plan to reduce my usage of it
59% of Respondents Use Google Reviews In Their Personal Lives Outside of Work
This trend carries over into the lives of many of our business owners and marketing experts, with 59% of them actively engaging with Google Reviews in their personal lives to support or inspire change in the brands they actively consume.
This is an interesting component of this survey, as it allowed us to engage business owners to learn more about how they themselves use reviews. First, we asked them what their preferred review platform was for their business and whether they also used it on a personal level.
“Glassdoor and Trustpilot are two of my favorites so far. I use Glassdoor to check companies I am planning to partner with and Trustpilot for digital installations that I plan to use frequently for personal consumption. I also use it to leave reviews for products I support. I use the sites around once or twice a month and usually for intensely good or intensely bad customer experiences”
—Devin Schumacher, Founder, SERP
“My favorite online review platform is definitely Amazon, and here’s why: For any business, understanding how an audience is responding to products from your competitors is crucial. No business leader can make an informed business decision without first understanding the current state of their competition. Because Amazon has become the largest online marketplace in the world, it is a very organized and accessible place to view all kinds of consumer opinions on an endless number of products.”
—Gabriel Dungan, Founder & CEO, ViscoSoft
“Like many people around the world, my favorite online review site is Yelp. Not only is it incredibly user-friendly but it is also so easy to find any information you need regarding a business before you visit. Additionally, I love that YELP allows businesses to reply to reviews and connect with their customers. I definitely use Yelp in my personal life, especially when deciding on what Thai restaurant to order take out from or where to get the best deal on something. I use Yelp close to 3 times a week, depending on where I am and what I have to get done. I specifically find it useful when I am traveling or visiting somewhere that I have never been.”
—Avner Brodsky, CEO & Co-Founder, Superwatches
59% – Yes, I use it outside of work for myself
41% – No, I only use it for my business
Of the 59% of Small Business Owners Who Said They Use Review Sites in Their Personal Lives, 46% Are More Likely to Leave a Review if They Had a Positive Experience (23% if Negative)
As consumers, business owners and professionals in any given industry have the opportunity to encourage others in their niche or help a business recognize shortcomings in their operations by providing detailed and actionable feedback. Our respondents seemed more focused on building up than tearing down, with 43% saying they would leave a review after a great experience and only 23% saying they would leave a negative review. This could be seen as a lost opportunity to help improve the overall consumer experience, as who else but a business owner would be qualified to give detailed and informed, but also fair and balanced, feedback to a brand after a subpar experience.
At this point, we also wanted to establish whether our community of business owners and professionals who did use a review site for their personal experience were more inclined to leave a review after a positive experience, as they themselves would want their own customers to do, or if they only focused on negative experiences in order to help improve the operation.
“As a consumer, I only like to leave reviews if I have something positive to say. I understand the stress a bad review can cause for any business, so unless there is a problem with the product that must be voiced, I’ll usually just keep quiet. If it’s a matter of my personal preference, then a critical review won’t really help the product. If it is a problem with the design, build or overall quality, leaving a respectful review outlining these problems could be hugely beneficial for the company.”
—Gabriel Dungan, Founder & CEO, ViscoSoft
“It depends upon my experience with that particular business. In most cases, I give positive feedback and ignore small things. But if I found anything that directly spoils customer experience, then I gave negative feedback.”
—Daniela Sawyer, Founder, FindPeopleFast
“I’m more of a B2B reviewer than a B2C. Hence, I leave reviews for several companies I dealt with, leaning more on the positive side because I feel for them. I know what it is like to receive negative reviews for a small business. So, I’d rather write the good things about the company than the bad ones.”
—James Parsons, Founder & CEO, Content Powered
46% – I’m more likely to write a review if I had a positive experience
23% – I’m more likely to write a review if I had a negative experience
31% – I write both positive and negative reviews
35% Respondents That Don’t Use Google Reviews In Their Personal Life Noted That They Simply Don’t Have the Time to Use Review Sites
Interestingly, despite the verified volume of search traffic that flows through Google on an annual basis, at least 35% of our respondents claimed that they didn’t have time to read reviews and didn’t bother with them in their daily routines outside of work.
As business professionals, our respondents’ insight into the review process might play into this hesitancy as well, as a significant 18% felt they couldn’t trust the reviews as listed and many appear to be biased and of questionable quality or origin.
“As a review management SaaS founder and digital marketing agency owner, these numbers don’t surprise me. We work with small business owners every day. The majority are just realizing that reviews about their business are important, but the owners we work with admittedly are not “techie” in their personal lives. They hire us to help them figure out and implement all things digital. It isn’t that they wouldn’t do it, they probably just want someone to show them how easy it is. Personally, this is one of the reasons we’ve invested so much money and energy into review management for clients.”
—Jay Vics, CEO & Fractional CMO, JVI Mobile Marketing & Local 5 Stars(SaaS)
Finally, we wanted to allow our business owner community to weigh in on their own concerns and the reasons they might not engage with review sites in their personal daily lives.
“I don’t usually use it outside of business. This is mainly because online stores now provide comment or review sections on their sites that make it convenient to study the quality of the product and its services without seeking a third party.”
—Alex Buchnev, Founder & CEO, Paddling Space
35% – I don’t have the time to check or use review sites
16% – I don’t use the businesses that are listed
18% – I don’t feel that the customer reviews are legitimate
13% – The customer reviews are of poor quality and/or seem biased
10% – I don’t like to read customer reviews before making a purchase
8% – Other
Regardless of what you might feel about review sites as a professional on your days off, the value of reviews can’t be ignored and therefore it’s crucial that your organization identify a platform to focus your efforts on and build a review generation strategy around that platform. With the right approach to review management, you can build powerful brand recognition and exposure through solid customer engagement and prioritizing the importance of taking ownership of your business.
True Entrepreneurship In 2022 is Having A Plan to Successfully Leverage Social Media and Review Directories
Covid-19 has been a force of change across all industries, large and small. It brought with it a necessary shift in consumer behaviors and a prioritization of the customer experience and the value the brands they patronize bring to the table. The primary ways they accomplish this include engaging with their brands of choice across social media platforms and searching out both positives and negatives of those brands.
As a business owner, you can’t afford to ignore customer engagement on your social media and review directory listings moving into the next year, given how much uncertainty there still is regarding economic recovery. Thanks to the small business insights from our survey, our readers have a better idea of where to focus their efforts. To learn more about social media marketing tactics and review management strategies, or to find a service provider that specializes in supporting small businesses enacting a robust and rounded marketing strategy, you can check out the UpCity marketplace.
UpCity’s Survey Method
UpCity used Pollfish to survey 600 small business owners throughout the United State and Canada about their takes on key social media brands and online review platforms. Fifty-five percent of the respondents own B2B companies and forty-five percent own B2C companies.
A majority of the small businesses have 2-5 employees (49%) followed by 26-50 employees (19%) and 6-10 employees (13%).
Most of the respondents work in the Construction industry (15%), Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation (7%), Finance and Insurance (7%), Healthcare (5%), and Hospitality (5%). Twenty-eight percent of them have been in business for 3-5 years and earn an annual revenue of less than $500,000 (55%).
Fifty-six percent of the respondents are male and forty-four percent are female.