(Time to read this Blog article is about 60 seconds)
A recent survey shows that 70% of people look for “Social Proof’ before doing business with a company. For millennials, the number is 84%. So what exactly is ‘Social Proof’? It is simply the process of checking on the internet and social media for proof that your product, advertising and marketing claims are true. In other words, people trust what others say about you much more than what you say about yourself.
One of the most accessible and familiar forms of ‘Social Proof’ are the reviews and star rating of your business on Google. The maximum number of stars is 5. Any rating below 4 out of 5 is a killer. How many stars does your business get on Google? Have you ever looked? Have you read the reviews? How many stars do your competitors get? Have you done anything to correct the negative things that folks may have said about you? Your target customers are paying attention to this stuff…perhaps you should too.
While doing some online research on the lawn care and snow removal industry recently, I came across a company named ‘Five Star Landscaping and Snow Removal’ in Waterford, Michigan. A great name…but on Social Media they get only one star out of 5 in 36 damming reviews. You can’t screw people around anymore. They’ll get you…and they’re more believable than you are.
To complicate matters, there’s another ‘Five Star Landscaping and Snow Removal’ company, just 30 miles away in New Haven, Michigan, owned by a different person, that gets 4.9 stars and brilliant reviews. How two companies in the same line of work, just 30 miles apart, end up with the same name is a mystery to me…but it makes no sense.
So, what specific things will you do or fix to deserve and get at least a 4.5 star rating and many glowing reviews from your customers on the internet and social media? And when will you start?
