Online consumer reviews can make or break a business. Transparency and immediacy means that consumers want to see reviews before they will make contact with a business. No reviews? Lost customers, and no business can survive if they are not actively marketing themselves to meet consumer demands.
But what about video reviews? For over two decades, the internet has become ingrained in all aspects of life – leisure, entertainment, and most critically – business. The power of online reviews is accepted and savvy business owners realise that they need to have a review platform online. But the traditional method has always been text – the stories and opinions of consumers based on their experiences and satisfaction of products and services. Text is fine but as we all know, it can miss inflection and can create ambiguities.
Video, on the other hand is a short snapshot that has the added appeal of visual cues that can be far more valuable than a collection of words. people like to read opinions of others but seeing other people giving feedback, adds a greater dimension.
With that said, it is critical that video reviews are authentic – that there is a robust strategy in place that ensures reviewers are genuine customers expressing opinions that can be backed by a basis of fact.
Above is a short two minute video from a NoCowboys business – Josh Farmer from Elite Waterblasting in Auckland. Seeing as we are in the review business, it just makes sense to have video reviews about us
NoCowboys is New Zealand’s only genuinely authenticated online review platform and that’s important for two reasons. Firstly, consumers need to know that reviews are real, not fabricated, distorted, or downright fake. Secondly, it is important to ensure a reputation is safeguarded so that competitors or those with axes to grind can’t damage a business’ greatest asset.
Authenticated video reviews are not new, they’ve been around for few years. Google is actually in the process of rolling out ten second video reviews that can be placed in the maps component of a Google My Business profile.
NoCowboys already has the capacity for businesses to include short videos about themselves in their profiles and they are incredibly valuable for SEO. Google will pick up recent and relevant as it aggregates away and videos are great for that – they are big files with lots of information.
So what do you think? Are video reviews valuable? Would you be more, or less likely to want to watch short video reviews than read text?
As a business, do you see the advantages of having your own videos made to use for your own marketing?
