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Retail Top 100 2012, No. 24: UGC, product reviews

December 26, 2012

Online marketers recognize how effective user-generated content (UGC) can be in strengthening search engine optimization strategies. According to comScore ARS, UGC product reviews are every bit as persuasive and effective (if not more so) than far costlier advertising media, including display and TV. User-generated product reviews have proven to be one of the most highly effective tools of social media marketing, allowing marketers to tweak and modify their messages — and help businesses increase their profits in the process. For retailers, UGC provides unbiased and unguarded feedback from actual customers. The next logical step for many marketers involves gleaning data from “micro UGC” — short, low-involvement forms of user-generated content such as Facebook status updates, “likes,” star ratings on Netflix or Amazon, location-based check-ins, “you may also like” recommendations and pictures posted on Tumblr. The logic of UGC’s effectiveness is simple: Like-minded people trust the opinions of their peers above the hype of paid shills.

Download the complete Top 100.