The Power Of Online Recommendations

Recommendations have long been one of the most important driving forces in a businesses success. Often dubbed “word of mouth advertising”, that same principle that was so precious offline is now even more important online. The only thing that has changed is the name – online recommendations – and the viral nature of these recommendations.

A recent report clearly underlines how important this has become online.  The power of moms online has long been recognized and this is now delivering for those who can make use of their voice. According to the report, 79% of all moms with children under 18 are engaged in some way with social media.  More importantly, 23% of those moms purchased a product for their child based on the recommendations of others.

You don’t need to be a mathematician to realize that those percentages equate to millions of sales, all based on recommendations. Around 40% of recommendations came from Facebook while 55% came from recommendations on blogs.  The question for most marketers is how to capitalize on this trend. Unfortunately, there is only one way – you have to leave a positive impression on the moms that count – and hopefully they will recommend your products.

Moms have become a very picky group over the years. Gone are the days when you could send them a product and expect to see a recommendation on their blog. Instead, what you will now read is an honest appraisal of your product, warts and all.  Of course, the upside is that a recommendation from those respected moms is almost a guarantee of traffic to your sites, and perhaps sales.

This can be extrapolated across a range of niches. Online recommendations are becoming one of the mainstays of online marketing.  Convince those who influence others and you have won half the battle. The other half is meeting the expectations of customers coming from those recommendations.