Google Reviews and Pandemic TV Habits

For most of us, we’ve now surpassed our one year anniversary of the world shutting down for Covid-19. Cheers? Actually, let’s cheers after we’ve hit herd immunity and we’ve been vaccinated. ‍

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Looking back, and as we hopefully turn the corner, the early days of the pandemic and quarantine were quite literally the strangest of times. The unknown. The panic. The stay at home orders. And, inevitably, a lot of TV watching. 

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At times, it felt like the entire world was all watching the same things. Hello Tiger King and Last Dance. Perhaps you were more of a Queen's Gambit or Love is Blind person? Or, if you’re like me, all of the aforementioned and then some. ‍

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With all of this streaming and TV consumption we also, unwittingly, became an easy, captive audience for TV advertisers.‍

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As we all sat on our couches a noticeable shift happened in the types of advertising that was being fed to us. Brands quickly shifted into a “we’ll get through this together” message in hopes of hitting us in the feels and winning our business long term. On top of that an effort to support our struggling local businesses became a common refrain from Leaders and Advertisers alike.

Google specifically stepped up and started airing ads to lead the “support local businesses” charge. And, like any Trillion Dollar business, the ads were beautiful, poignant, informative, and touching. Here’s a refresher if you’ve forgotten:‍

It was a series of effective ads that made us want to help our struggling local businesses while also reminding everyone how easy it is to find them via Google. It was truly a double whammy for Google: 1. Made us feel good about their initiative and 2. effectively reminded us to keep using their services. Hate ‘em or love ‘em Google is essential to our lives AND our businesses.‍

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Yet while the ads showed how easy it is for consumers to find a local business, there was obviously no mention of how difficult it can actually be for a local business to get found on Google. After all, not every business can sit inside the top 3 of the business listings section. ‍

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So how do you get listed on top? It’s actually a fairly simple formula, but can be tough to maintain. Get positive reviews (4 stars or higher) and lots of them (no duh). But be sure to add in recency and frequency of new reviews with a sprinkle of written responses and now you're on a winning path.‍

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This is where Swell comes in. Swell not only helps you get new reviews, but also automates the process so that you can continually receive them (recency and frequency). On average Swell customers see an uptick of 30+ reviews in just their first month! And some customers generate well within the hundreds per month!‍

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On top reviews, Swell helps to simplify all of your digital customer engagement touch points to help ensure that you continue to deliver best-in-class customer experiences which will continue to feed the review machine. It’s what we call creating a Swell for your local business. 

For good measure here’s my favorite of the Google ads for a few reasons: great nostalgic song  (Return of the Mack by Mark Morrison) and mad bonus points for featuring our very own local Utah suit store. Shout out Mr. Mac!

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Learn more about generating reviews with Swell

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