How Sharing Fuels Reviews: Insights for Boosting Amazon Ratings
There is a wonderful range of personalities who will buy your product from Amazon. Some of these personalities will be habitual in leaving reviews, while others not so much. There will be personalities with a general negative bias who complain regardless of how hard hard you try, and there will be personalities with a general cheery outlook who could never say a bad word. There are those who desperately want their voice heard, and your review section just happens to allow them the platform. And when it comes to making people leave reviews, some of these personality types are out of your control - aka, you can’t bring cheer to a person who seeks to complain about EV. ERY. THING.
Today, we’re going to look at the personality of sharing-types; those who love to share, imparting wisdom, advice and warnings as they go. This is one personality that we can influence in our reviews and today we’ll look at how.
Sharing is Caring
It's human nature to share experiences. We do it to prevent others from suffering, to connect, or just to brag! Sharing is what we do well.
Think about it: when someone tells you they're going to a restaurant, place, or gym that you've been to, what's the first thing you do? You share your experience!
"I've been there, it was… [insert experience here]"
This type of Amazon reviewer is exactly the same. They want to help others have the same good experience or avoid the same bad one. So, they’re more than happy to write glowing reviews or warnings. They get an emotional reward from sharing, and those rewards can be anything from a sense of purpose, to a sense of worth from being helpful.
On the flipside, those who do not like to share, will write things like “as described”, click the stars without a word, or simply ignore your review requests. These people are unlikely to share unless you’ve REALLY excelled at your product - writing things like “I don’t normally leave reviews”. And they might share if you’ve failed miserably at even a basic level of quality, which triggers other parts of their psyche.
Now that you see some reviewers are sharing types, let's consider what encourages them to share in the form of a review.
How To Get These Sharers to Write a Great Review
Sharers love to write a review, regardless. You rarely need to ask. But if you do ask, don’t do it with a weird bleeding heart story about how you’re a small family business and the big brands stop you from making sales and you really need their reviews. Instead, speak in their language about sharing and how others need your opinion to help them make decisions.
They’re going to write a review anyway, but exceeding or failing their expectations will earn the best and worst reviews.
Expectations are known as a “status” - a situation at a particular time. They can be emotional or benign, depending on the risk. Money, time, and strong beliefs about a product are all risky things that can be lost once we’ve unboxed the item. It’s this emotional charge that drives someone to share their exceptional experience, or their abysmal one.
Just like all shoppers, sharing types have expectations, too.
So If you want a great review your product needs meet or exceed expectations. It’s pretty simple.
We don’t want neutral reviews. If a sharing type feels neutral about your product, you can expect them to list a bunch of pros AND cons, with a wishy-washy 3 star rating that has the general appearance of a complaint! New customers will weigh up the pros and cons, click the “helpful” button which pushes the review higher, while feeling uncertain about your product. So again, we must always try and excel and exceed expectations to minimize neutral reviews.
Vine Reviewers are typically people who are good at sharing, hence why they get invited - it has very little to do with free product. And have you noticed how Vine Reviewers LOVE giving pros and cons reviews. If you’re going to source reviews via the Vine Program, make sure your product knocks it out of the park - because these reviewers will call out every negative.
How To Use The Reviews that Sharing Types Leave
Negative Feedback: Listen to it and make product adjustments. Alternatively, dial down your product description if it’s misleading or overselling.
Positive Feedback: Check your product description and incorporate what reviewers say. For example, if they praise the texture, highlight the texture in your PD. If they use a particular word, you should use that word too.
Spot The Difference: Find more than one person saying the same thing. Many people means there is a pattern of discourse, while one or two people may be outliers that do not reflect general buyer sentiment.
Research your competition’s reviews - particularly the sharers. Identify opportunities from your competitors pros and cons to offer the best product on the market.
Use Your Product Description to Make Them Share
For those who love to share, they will be triggered by any misleading information, warning other shoppers in advance. This is not the kind of sharing you want! So make sure your PD doesn’t over promise.
Reflect positive buyer sentiment in your PD to attract more like-minded people who will say the same nice things! If reviewers are going nuts over a particular feature, reflect their sentiment and showcase it in your PD, don’t undersell.
If your product has cons, don’t ignore it. But don’t draw too much attention to it. Keeping it real will ensure you don’t attract sharers who are ready to dispute your product description. It can take a bit of practice to write copy that includes product cons in a graceful way, but it’s far better than leaving it out and watching your star average take a tumble.
Sharing is Caring Gone Wrong
Years ago, one of my clients was selling fitness trackers, trying to capitalize on the Apple Watch trend like many others. Unfortunately, they didn't research thoroughly. The model they sourced already had awful reviews on Amazon. Many features didn’t work, leading to mass returns. I wrote the copy for the product, unaware it was faulty. The client had filled in my product brief telling me about the watch, and provided me a list of his competitors - in hindsight, none that were relevant.
When they launched, the sales came in fast —and then, so did the bad reviews. Their rating dipped to 3 stars, and the listing was shut down. Afterwards, I scoured Amazon and found all the identical models, and discovered that the same bad reviews were present for all sellers. The sharing machine was in action, warning others away from a bad purchase. If this client had paid attention to this, they may have sourced a different model fitness watch and had greater success.
This shows, the Amazon review system and those who love to share, are king when it comes to your product selection, enhancements, and product description.
By understanding that there are many different types of reviewer, and by respecting the opinion of sharing types, Amazon Sellers can better strategize to encourage positive reviews and handle negative ones effectively.
Wanna know who the other personality types are, and how to manage their reviews? Learn how to get more reviews and better reviews with the 3rd Edition of The Get Reviews Guide. Discover why bleeding heart stories don’t work, and how to ask your customer for a review with a better success rate.
