Consumer Reviews Are King

Going back to my social media & last click thoughts ... There's been a study in the US about how "consumer comments boost buying".

The survey by Razorfish isn't the largest in human history (only 475 US internet users) but it goes someway to support my theory that affiliate sites and blogs in particular to play an important part in the buying process amongst consumers.

A further study by Deloitte & Touche USA said that 18% of people had their purchase decision influenced by peer reviews in the health and beauty sector.

Now if you go into the sectors that I'm heavily involved in as an affiliate: Home electronics, personal electronics and toys & games, it varies from 22% to 45% of purchase decisions being effected by online consumer-generated reviews!

So there's two thoughts, I believe, you should take away with you:

1. Affiliates have a large share of voice online with blogs and other media. Don't mess them around with decisions such as giving no notice on commission changes etc as us affiliates will find it a hard decision to make when looking to promote you again when you need some positive online spin;
   
   
2. Consider looking at "social media optimisation" to monitor and ammend online thoughts amongst non-affiliate bloggers. n.b. don't do pay per post-style nonsense thought!

Right - gotta finish those damn accounts now!