How do they relate to online reviews in different countries

World Trends

In the first half of 2017, more than 45 million new reviews appeared on the Internet. 85% of them are written in China. This is six times more than in the United States. At the same time, the Chinese write short reviews.

The researchers compared attitudes towards reviews across regions. Reviews are most trusted in Africa and the Middle East. Latin America is the only region where traditional advertising is more popular than reviews and online promotions.

By regions, the trust in reviews was distributed as follows:

Region	Trust in reviews	Trust in the recommendations of friends
Asian-Pacific area	70%	85%
Europe	60%	78%
Africa and the Middle East	71%	85%
Latin America	63%	88%
North America	66%	82%

Generation Y trusts reviews the most. These are people aged 21 to 34 years. Their trust level is 85%. This is followed by Generation Z (15 to 20 years old) and Generation X (35 to 49 years old). Their trust level is 83%.

Russia

The latest relevant research in the field of reviews in the Russian market was carried out by the agency Nielsen. He was interested in the degree of consumer confidence in various sources of information.

The results are as follows:

In addition to the advice of friends, reviews on the Internet caused more confidence among Russians. Traditional forms of advertising are lagging far behind. The chart did not include online video ads, which only 35% of respondents believe, and social media ads, which 30% trust.

Nielsen noted an overall drop in confidence in traditional advertising by 4-5 points. Regarding new channels of promotion, the situation is as follows:

Channel view	2013 level	2015 level
Social media advertising	35%	30%
contextual advertising	42%	39%
Online video ads	32%	35%

Channel credibility is great, but are they able to motivate consumers to buy? There have been almost no changes here:

80% - recommendations of friends.
64% - reviews on the Internet.
62% - content on brand sites.
54% - TV ads.
51% - contextual advertising.
45% are social media ads.
44–45% - newspapers, magazines and radio.
42% are online video ads.
37% - banner ads.

What ads do you like to watch the most? In Russia, it is funny: 60% of consumers answered that videos with humor evoke the greatest response from them (39% on average in the world). Advertising based on real life situations is liked by 42% of the respondents. A third of Russians enjoy watching ads with family scenes, a little less (30%) - videos promoting a healthy lifestyle.

Russians prefer to read reviews on the Internet and listen to friends.

United Kingdom

British agency Igniyte calculated the impact of online reviews on business. These data are referred to by the UK Government's Competition and Markets Authority in their reports. Let's take a look at their last cut.

Residents of the UK closely monitor their reputation, especially on the Internet. They treat reviews as the main source of information about brands. Thus, 88% of surveyed business owners believe that positive reviews on the Internet are important for their customers.

Half of the respondents believe that negative reviews directly affect their work. At the same time, one in five is dissatisfied with the way his company is presented in Google search results.

According to British businessmen, the most harm is brought about by custom-made negativity from competitors (43%) and negative feedback from former employees (42%). The negativity on the Internet caused certain problems for 41% of those surveyed. A third of businessmen admitted that their online reputation negatively affected employees.

Negative coverage of incidents in the media is considered a problem by 17% of respondents. At the same time, every third person in one way or another suffered from posts on social networks.

£ 46,815 Average damage to online reputation. This is about 3.5 million rubles.

Every tenth named the amount of damage between 50 and 100 thousand pounds. A quarter of those surveyed paid for their tarnished reputation in losses of 10 thousand pounds. One in five of the negative on the Internet has cost an amount close to 50 thousand pounds.

Three-quarters of Internet companies cited negative content about themselves as their top concern. For 20% of respondents, working with negative information has become the main agenda. For them, defeating negativity has become more important than increasing brand awareness.

UK buyers and business people see reviews as a direct reflection of the brand's reputation.

USA

Researchers from The Pew Research Center studied the attitude of Americans towards online reviews. For example, 82% of American adults occasionally go through online ratings or reviews before buying. Moreover, 40% do it all the time.

Americans of all ages know what online reviews are and are generally positive about them. Customers under the age of 50 regularly read reviews before making a serious purchase.

In America, there is a direct relationship between the frequency of purchases and the level of trust in reviews on the Internet:

How often do they buy	Trust level
Every week or more	67%
Every month, but not more often	54%
Less than once a month	38%

Therefore, the more often US residents buy, the more they trust the advice from the Internet.

Interestingly, Americans are not limited to reviews alone - in addition, most of the adult population watches video reviews. 54% of Americans admitted reading negative reviews first. If they're not overly intimidating, take a close look at positive reviews.

Buyers and business people alike have noted an increased number of substandard custom reviews. More than half of user reviews do not give an idea of the product at all, limiting themselves to florid phrases. Trust in companies using low-cost commentators is declining across all age groups.

The optimism of the nation was reflected in the reviews as well: 86% of respondents wrote reviews after a positive experience, and 77% - after a negative one.

conclusions

Generation Y trusts reviews the most. These are people aged 21 to 34 years.
The African and Middle East regions have the highest confidence in reviews.
In China, 85% of all reviews in the world write.
Russians prefer to read reviews on the Internet and listen to friends.
UK buyers and business people see reviews as a direct reflection of the brand's reputation.
The more Americans buy, the more they trust online advice.