BrightLocal.com has published the results of its Local Consumer Review Survey 2013, containing a host of interesting statistics regarding consumer attitudes to online reviews. Among the highlights: consumers tend to trust what they read, with about 8 in 10 saying they trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.
The study indicates that an increasing number of consumers are reading online reviews to determine whether a local business is a good business (85% this year, up from 76% last year), and two-thirds need to read less than 6 reviews before forming an opinion about the business (up from 52% last year.)
Those results signal the power of positive reviews online – and that influence should only increase given consumers’ rising use of the internet to find local businesses. This year, virtually all (95%) respondents said they had used the internet for that purpose, up from 85% last year. That includes more than one-third who did so at least once a month. Read the rest at MarketingCharts.
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