A modern digital marketing strategy is highly likely to include opportunities for feedback from customers and potential customers, in the form of social media interaction, professional review pages, or review systems on the organisation’s own website.

As far back as 1999, research found that a key characteristic of internet-age consumers is the likelihood of seeking and trusting peer-to-peer recommendations, rather than brand advertising or organisation-elicited information campaigns (Piller, 1999).

Since the explosion of specialist review websites across the service industry such as Trip Advisor or Yelp, it has never been easier for consumers to become self-appointed “reviewers” of a business, or to join the reviewing community that grows around such review websites (Whitehead, 2011).

Fig. 1(Weisfeld-Spolter, 2013)

As shown in Fig. 1, there are a number of different types of communication available for reviewers wishing to leave feedback, some of which are more effective than others (Weisfeld-Spolter, 2013).

Individuals choose to leave online reviews for a variety of reasons,  including individual self-development as part of a community with a shared interest. Also, and perhaps more deeply, the sense of social bonding which arises from participation in, and respect arising out of, such participation in a community with shared interests (Labsomboonsiri, 2012).

According to Rhodes (2009), further reasons people may write reviews online include being paid to do so, or gaining reward or loyalty points to do so. Also people are more likely to review a product or service if they benefited from a review themself, and now feel an urge to pass the advice along. Finally, Rhodes concludes, reviews are useful, they increase conversion and give people more reason to stay on a site or page, creating a “halo” effect, that is positive for the organisation, not just the product under review.

Furthermore, it appears that a few negative reviews are not particularly bad for business, and may help to build trust around the review system, as “no one trusts all positive reviews” (The Economist, 2009).

Motivations for those in the virtual online reviewer communities are at times complex, and are as much about the individual’s need to have their opinion heard, as they are about the satisfactory nature of the product or service. However, there is an expectation that there will be an opportunity for feedback from most online consumers, and it appears an organisation would be significantly missing out if it decided not to afford it’s customers (and potential customers) the benefit of a customer to customer review system.

An interesting case study is laid out below (McCue, 2011) which outlines how a small business benefited after becoming active on Yelp and similar review sites:

‘Bagelheads’ is a coffee and sandwich bar in Florida, USA. The owner became an advocate for Yelp after receiving one or two negative reviews, and decided to take the opportunity to engage with the customers who posted those reviews, turning their experience around. Following that, he started becoming more active online, and has seen the numbers of positive reviews rise significantly. Today, Bagelheads has 71 reviews, and an average of four out of five stars  (Yelp, 2015). To drive reviews he created a “check-in reward” on his Yelp page, and now advertises a QR code to make it easier for his customers to find his business on Yelp, and link to social media.

For future campaigns this suggests a need to create incentives for customers to leave reviews, to remove any barriers involved in finding the business listing, and to respond quickly to any negative feedback. This case study also suggests that business owners should be realistic in the numbers of reviews one small business is likely to receive. The case shows us that Bagelheads has been listed on Yelp since at least 2009, and has accrued 71 reviews, which is more than any other coffee shop in the area. It is important to remember that individual motivations for leaving reviews differ from person to person, and without a big brand for reviewers to get behind, the numbers of reviews may be far lower than ‘followers’ or ‘likes’ on social media.

Yelp (2015) ‘Bagelheads’ Yelp Review Page, [Online] Available at: <http://www.yelp.co.uk/biz/bagelheads-pensacola> [Accessed on 22nd April, 2015]

McCue, T. (2011) ‘How 4 companies use Yelp to woo customers’, American Express Open Forum, [Online] Available at: <https://www.americanexpress.com/us/small-business/openforum/articles/how-4-companies-used-yelp-to-woo-customers/> [Accessed on 22nd April, 2015]

Labsomboonsiri, S. (2012) ‘Motivations for eWOM exchanges in an online community: Self-development, problem solving support, relaxation’ [PDF] Available at: <http://eprints.qut.edu.au/60159/1/Saranya_Labsomboonsiri_Thesis.pdf> [Accessed on 18th April,. 2015]

Piller, C. (1999) ‘Everyone is a critic in cyberspace’, Los Angeles Times. Available at: <http://articles.latimes.com/1999/dec/03/news/mn-40120> [Accessed on 20th April, 2015].

Rhodes, M. (2009) ‘Why do people write reviews?’ Fresh Minds [Online] Available at: <http://www.freshminds.net/2009/03/why-do-people-write-reviews/> [Accessed on 20th April, 2015]

The Economist (2009) The internet: Books and other products sold by online retailers can attract thousands of reviews – why are they worth reading, or writing? [Online] Available at: <http://www.economist.com/node/13174365> [Accessed on 20th April, 2015]

Weisfeld-Spolter, S. (2013) ‘Types of Electronic Word of Mouth (EWOM), Nova SouthEastern University HSBE Faculty of Business, [Online] Available at: <http://www.huizenga.nova.edu/faculty-blog/index.cfm/2013/11/25/Types-of-Electronic-WordofMouth-eWOM> [Accessed on 20th April, 2015]

Whitehead, L. (2011) “Identifying future research opportunities in online consumer reviews: the case study of ‘TripAdvisor’.” International Journal of Technology Marketing, Vol. 6, pp.341-354.

Word of mouth recommendations via the medium of the internet (known as Electronic Word-of-Mouth or EWOM), allow customers to exert influence over other consumers in a much more long-lasting and powerful manner, suggest Litvin, Goldsmith and Pan (2008).

Interestingly, when applied to the hospitality and tourism sector, this effect is magnified, and is well enshrined in academic models explaining tourist behaviour, such as Dearden and Harron’s theory that tourist opinion leaders are key in discovering new events and places, thereafter disseminating the information to their “less intrepid cousins” (1992, p.102).

Litvin et al. suggest some reasons for the proliferation of the various customer review sites in the hospitality industry, and their success. One reason they identify is the intangible and mostly hidden nature of the product. Travellers do not experience hospitality in familiar environments or (usually) in the kind of social situations in which dissemination of views by traditional word-of-mouth is possible. That is, a group of other travelers have no need of a word-of-mouth recommendation as they are also experiencing that holiday or event. Further, travelers experience the service with nothing to take away, and at times the promise that is sold at the time of purchase is incongruent with the product that is actually received. The point made is that reviewing a hospitality experience enables travelers to partake in new communities made up of those who have had similar experiences, and have their experiences verified by passing on to future travelers, even if these people are not in their direct social circle.

Litvin et al. outline some ethical concerns regarding EWOM as a marketing channel, an issue which is largely absent from many academic articles on the matter. Abuse of online communities such as TripAdvisor are not hard to imagine, as hospitality managers rely on feedback on comparison sites for their livelihoods. Litvin et al. warn against shill reviews posted by employees, or other encroachments on communities of trusting consumers which could potentially cause great harm to the confidence placed in genuine reviews by potential consumers. The conclusion of their article is pretty clear – online reviews in the hospitality community are not going anywhere, so managing these in an ethical manner has to be top priority for tourism and hospitality managers.

So, what do hoteliers have to say about Trip Advisor? The following case study has been described after appearing on Trip Advisor’s blog (Trip Advisor, 2014):

Andy and Matthew moved to Brighton to achieve their dream of opening a guest house. They had bought a tired Bed and Breakfast, re-decorated, and opened their doors to guests, but neither of them had any experience in the hospitality industry. After trading for a month or so, a neighbouring guest house owner mentioned a good review that had been left on Trip Advisor, to which Andy replied “What’s Trip Advisor?”. Andy and Matthew began using Trip Advisor, not just to gain insight into what their own guests required, but also used the platform to enhance their understanding regarding guest expectations in all of the competing hotels and Bed and Breakfast accommodation in Brighton.

Andy and Matthew eventually achieved the accolade of reaching No. 1 on Trip Advisor for guest houses in Brighton, receiving a Certificate of Excellence and a plaque they display in the reception area. They suggest their success is based on using Trip Advisor to raise their own standards, using not just their own reviews but also reviews of competing accommodation. They also suggest adding the Trip Advisor ‘widget’ button to the business website, to enable customers to read and check reviews more easily.

However, the Trip Advisor model is in no way unchallenged. There are numerous cases of hoteliers and B&B owners receiving extremely negative reviews, which are claimed to be false and misleading. Some of the language found across reviews on the site was reported in 2010 (Starmer-Smith):

2,300 reviews containing the words “racist/racism”

353 reviews containing the words “pervert/perverted”

295 reviews containing the words “homophobic/homophobia”

33 reviews containing the word “rapist”

10 reviews containing the word “paedophile”

Clearly these are huge allegations, all of which, Starmer-Smith reports, are unfounded given that Trip Advisor does not fact-check any of the opinions or information travelers choose to leave on the site. Furthermore, the outcome for a small business of a bogus or malicious review can be devastating, as one B&B owners found, when his £25-a-night accommodation was described on Trip Advisor as: “B&B Hell”. His 30 year business was forced to shut with the resulting loss of custom.

So, it becomes clear that there are benefits and drawbacks to listing a business on a review site in a service-driven industry, and we have seen this with the case studies afforded by Trip Advisor and various guest accommodations. Those operating in the tourism sector have been labouring under the expectation to be reviewed for a number of years, with this consumer-centric paradigm now rolling out to other industries via new review platforms and borne out of a shift in customer expectation. The tourism industry has lessons we can learn to ensure reviews are as legitimate, ethical and accurate as possible.

Dearden, P. & Harron, S. (1992) ‘Case study: tourism and the Hilltribes of Thailand’, in B. Weiler, M. Hall (Eds.), Special interest tourism, Belhaven Press: London, pp. 95–104.

Litvin, S., Goldsmith, R. & Pan, B. (2008) ‘Electronic word-of-mouth in hospitality and tourism management’ Tourism Management, Vol. 29 (Iss:3), pp. 458-468.

Starmer-Smith, C. (2010) ‘Tripadvisor reviews: can we trust them?’ The Independent, [Online] Available at: <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/hotels/8050127/Tripadvisor-reviews-can-we-trust-them.html> [Accessed on 18th April, 2015]

Trip Advisor (2014) ‘ Trip Advisor has definitely forced standards up: A Case Study’, Trip Advisor Blog, [Online] Available at: <http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/TripAdvisorInsights/n2090/tripadvisor-has-definitely-forced-standards-case-study> [Accessed on 18th April, 2015]

In 2013, Google launched an update, known as ‘Hummingbird’, which aimed to accommodate the types of search phrase used by those searching on a mobile device. Possibly for a quick fact check during a conversation, possibly when in a rush to find a restaurant and meet friends, or possibly for social media purposes, Hummingbird is designed to provide better results for phrase-based, conversational search terms, typical of people on the move, says Fiorelli, writing for Moz (2013).

Hummingbird introduced the the concept of meaning to Google search, and helps the user identify what and who they were looking for based on semantic terms (Sullivan, 2013) – in short, Google was learning to understand the language of the user, rather than the user needing to search by keywords.

Post-Hummingbird, many businesses did not notice a change, however this may well be because Google announced the update over a month after implementation, claiming there had only been positive developments to the algorithm (Sullivan, 2013).

So, with Google trying to understand us all better, where does Pigeon fit in?

Google Pigeon was introduced in the UK in January 2015, after a successful roll-out in the US late 2014.

‘Pigeon’ (nicknamed so because of the update’s focus on local business) updates Hummingbird and has arguably had a bigger effect on business-related search than any update in the past few years.

Alford (2015) outlines how Pigeon has optimised Google after Hummingbird:

A crucial development is the new preference for ‘Mobile-Friendly’ websites, as the crawlers prefer to scan one page rather than many. Ensuring even if there are many pages, that they link back to one optimised for mobile, is more important than ever.

Secondly, social media and chatter become more important, as long as these link back to your main site and are identifiable. Current posts, pictures, links and content updating, for example in a bar across the home page, is useful to link between your site and your social pages.

Thirdly, listings directories become important, including Google+ and Yelp. Many businesses that were showing up in the 7-pack of map listings at the top of the page prior to Pigeon, became lost after the update. Not only setting up the pages, but ensuring genuine customers place reviews seems to have an effect on ranking under Pigeon.

Pigeon also seems to have negated the impact of Google’s ‘paid-for’ advertising appearing before the search term, particularly when the search term includes Yelp. Soucy (2014) cites before and post-update screen-grabs for the same business, which clearly shows the Yelp listing has leaped to the top of the page (and conversely the paid-for term has been pushed down):

In conclusion, Google Search still plays a key role in a business’ online offering, and a consistent digital marketing strategy must now take into account the updates afforded by Hummingbird and Pigeon. A successful strategy is likely to include traditional white-hat organic links, as well as up to date and relevant content, such as blogging and images. Furthermore, social links will be included, and the most effective sites will be optimised for mobile search, which it appears, is where Google believes the future of Search is heading.

Alford, E. (2015) ‘Expert tips for cracking pigeon and winning local’, Search Engine Watch, [Online] Available at: <searchenginewatch.com/sew/news/2396574/expert-tips-for-cracking-pigeon-and-winning-local> [Accessed 5th March, 2015]

Fiorelli, G. (2013) ‘Hummingbird Unleashed’, Moz Blogs, [Online] Available at: <moz.com/blog/hummingbird-unleashed> [Accessed March 5th, 2015]

Soucy, L. (2014) ‘Google Pigeon: The new local algorithm explained’, iProspect, [Online] Available at: <http://www.iprospect.com/en/ca/blog/google-pigeon-new-local-algorithm-explained/> [Accessed 5th March, 2015]

Sullivan, D. (2013) ‘FAQ: All about the new Google “Hummingbird” algorithm’, Search Engine Land, [Online] Available at: <searchengineland.com/google-hummingbird-172816> [Accessed 5th March, 2015]