How Much Do You Trust Internet Reviews?
I am going to share a little secret that will get me blacklisted from a few websites, but one that I feel is a good public service.
I was writing my daily Steemit post and one of the tips I wrote was to “read the reviews” before you buy. I saved that piece for another day so I could share this one with you.
When I began focusing on my writing career, I suffered the cliché starving writer symptoms.
“I’m a writer.”
“Oh, cool! But, I meant, what do you do to, like, pay the bills while you're writing?”
Yeah, that’s really what it’s like.
I wrote for free. A lot. And picked up what I call junk work- writing mindless, boring stuff for pennies. I perused the Freelance Writers Job Boards and grabbed what I could. When you don’t have a “name”, nobody trusts you with anything with substance.
After a few months, I stumbled upon a client offering to pay $15- $20 for 300+ words. Her ad said if they liked your style you would be considered for consistent work of up to 20 per week. Of course I applied, and after sending a few samples I was asked to write my first piece.
The gig was to write reviews for a popular review website.
I had to create several fake personas and register at the website. She would send me the name and information of a company and tell me how many stars I should give it, and left me to use my creativity. I would write a lengthy and detailed review of a company after I researched it, making sure to say many good things about it, and only one thing that wasn’t so good( but only a little bit), so it would appear more realistic to the reader.
Because, well you know, nobody is perfect.
I’d publish my review and send her the link and find payment for however many I had created every Friday via Paypal.
I knew this was shady, but money talks and I had hungry mouths to feed. And besides, all my reviews were glowing and shed a glorious light on the company- and let me stress well-researched- so I told myself I wasn’t hurting anyone. And I quickly received a raise for $30-$50 per review, and, well, you know… I justified it…
I only did this for a few weeks because I landed a lucrative gig from a brilliant but slightly mad scientist trying to solve the California Water Crisis who couldn’t organize his thoughts into sentences and hired me to ghostwrite a presentation, e-book, and press releases. This took up all my time.
Moral of the story, always triple and quadruple check when you are researching reviews. There is a startling amount of reviews that are paid for. Yes, many of the good reviews are from real people who had real experiences, but not all.
This brief gig did teach me some valuable lessons. I don’t believe a single thing I read on the internet anymore! My journalism background has research deeply ingrained in my bones, but this took it to a whole other level!
Question everything!
I appreciate your support :)
With Love, Light and Good Mojo!
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What tips can you offer to help identify a real review over a paid one?
Oh boy that is a tough one. Even for me, and I have done it!
Look at the reviewer. See what else they have written about other products or businesses. Still it can be hard, but sometimes you can tell. Like if the profile picture is of a girl, but the products are not in line with what a gal will buy. Or if the image shows a 20 year old guy and the purchases lean toward a geriatric style.
Or if you see on Yelp that the reviewer lives in San Francisco, but wrote about a painter in Austin yesterday and a home decorating company in Chicago last week. You can spot the professional review writers easily that way. But still, some are clever and have a number of accounts and keep track.
Good question!
Wow, some people are too creative for their own good
LOL! Right?!
Yup, I always check to make sure the reviews seem legit. I know some people who will ask for reviews on their podcast and such from their viewers, which is good engagement for the audience. For products, if there are a ton of reviews, some in different languages, various opinions, not all good, then I know those are honest reviews. Fake reviews seem a bit sketchy, they have a pattern, and they seem to be phrased in similar ways, not like someone just quickly writing what they thought. On amazon, most reviews are legit. Google Play, there is a mix of legit and non-legit reviews.
"Great, just what I was looking for, works perfectly!" Right next to: "Doesn't open and displays error message." Makes the reviews look dishonest lol
Amazon Self Published books are the worst for paid reviews. I never wrote one, but I came across dozens of authors buying reviews in the form of services who specialize in this.
The service sells bundles of reviews for X amount of dollars. For example you can buy a package of 50 for $60 or 100 for $100. Because there are so many people who self publish with Create Space, getting their book noticed is almost impossible. To become visible, they need reviews. To get people to buy the book it must be visible. I see why they do it.
This is good to know, because depending how soon I am ready to publish, within the next year I'm hoping, I will probably be using Create Space or maybe another one. There are several options open to Canadians and I have a book by an author, who has the same editor as I do. She explains the process and our available choices. I do not want to buy reviews, because I want to be honest and organic, but it's good to know that some services might start spamming me for reviews and to know that their not legit and all that. I will encourage readers to write reviews.
The biggest problem with Amazon is that many of the products on it are counterfeit.
You really need to check the seller, because if the seller has good reviews, then chances are what you're buying is legit. But yeah, we need to be careful.
@arbitrarykitten I am going to go to Bed and Dream about this Immoral Gig that you had at one time. LOL
Have a Nice Morning Sweet Lady........
It has been so long but I still feel bad about it! lol
It's my nighty night time too! Past, its 2am! Ok, I am going to go look for my pillow...
Sleep well, SJ :)
Looks amazing baby my VP is done please vote later
I would appreciate you not calling me "baby". I am very much a well educated and fully grown woman. Steemit is a professional community, and I come here to share knowledge with my peers.
Fair warning, you might wish to reconsider using that word with strangers online. You never know who might have a jealous husband.
Kind regards.
Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww lol
AW what?! Would you like it if a strange guy started referring to you in an intimate manner?! Methinks you, my Patriot, would take more than one offense ;)
I was thinking more my of Austin Powers one liners that I can't throw at you anymore! lol
it's hard for me to be offended when I'm in a good mood.
I'll dig out a post from last week, if you really want to see offensive...
nice article. We should do our own research before trusting internet reviews.
Always, and research the reviewers! lol
Thank you :)
Honestly, I generally only read the worst reviews (typically 3 stars and below). The mid-range "okay" reviews seem to me to be the most honest.
That is pretty smart. I like that. Now, I have heard reference of companies hiring review writers to slander their competitors, but from what I came across as a writer looking for work I can honestly say I never found an ad for that myself. But, that's not to say they don't exist :)
I've never seen that either. But with the worst reviews, you learn things about shipping practices (often not a company's fault),and worst case scenarios.
So I haven't been cynically paranoid all these years, after all! lol
I might need your help (if you want to), in organizing my game in a few days
I have not clue how to structure the rewards thingy majiggy! lol
https://steemit.com/blog/@lucylin/a-festive-game
if you want to spread the word....? - cool.
I am on now if you want to discuss...
Fake reviews can be hard to spot.
Even on amazon there are paid reviews, I have seen on several websites people offering money to other to review products on amazon with a “prime” account!
Either way, this is a problem very hard to solve
True story, they are designed to blend.
So weird I always wondered about that! I am actually a google guide and I write reviews on places I have eaten at or visited for other people to review on google before they go. I don't get paid I just do it because I like using the review system myself.
I have found google reviews to be pretty accurate, but I guess the reviews you were doing were more for specific companies selling products or were they for travel websites as well?
The clients of the company I worked for had us posting to a popular travel and food site, a travel and hotel site, and a site which reviews companies for people to hire. I never reviewed for google or amazon, but I did see people hiring for amazon reviews
Holy smokes! It feels like the whole world is a lie now!
I mean really I knew some were fake but I didn't realize they hired out to make fake reviews, I just assumed it was someone internal doing it.
Either way thanks for the tips! Its good to know.