Photo by: dmswart
It may be easy to feel lost with all the social recommendation sites out there, let alone the social networking sites, but social recommendation is an important part of growing your client base.

Power to the People

Originally, reviews were left to the “professionals”–restaurant critics, magazine editors, experts. They were the first to taste, test, and drive new products, services and businesses. Then they’d sit at their desk and tell the public about it—if they deemed it worthy enough to render publication. A terrible review from a restaurant critic wielded as much power as someone with the ability to activate a bomb.

Consumers could then use this information to act accordingly, without ever experiencing it for themselves. “Oh I’m not using that product/going to that restaurant/using that service—it received horrible reviews!”

Technology and social networking has put the power back into the hands of the consumer. The internet has created a borderless society, (which has probably sliced the “Six Degrees of Separation Theory” in half). If I want to take a trip to Europe, not only can I quiz my friends, but I can find other people like me to recommend sights, hotels, restaurants, etc. There will always be someone out there, with similar interests to help guide others in the direction of quality, value, luxury, or whatever it is they’re looking for. We the people—are now the experts.

Stumble, Rummble and Digg Your Way to Good Reviews

Sites like StumbleUpon and Digg are a good place to start. Both sites allow community members to submit things that they like and all other users can vote on them. StumbleUpon actually tailors itself to each of its members’ interests. The more a user “stumbles” and rates the pages they stumble upon, the more interest specific their experience will be. Digg allows the user to build the popularity of any submitted item by “digging it.” The more “digs” an item has, the more popular it is and the more likely it is to appear on prominent pages. Digg also encourages users to “bury” spam, bad links, off-topic content and duplicate entries.

And then there is Rummble. While currently in limited open Beta, Rummble takes the social recommendations a step further by adding in the component of “location based content.” The site personalizes results for users with what they call a “trust profile.” Users can discover and share content, alert friends when they come into town, and publish their “Rummbles” to their social networking sites. The Rummble service is also available via mobile devices.

Ask and You Shall Receive

One of the most important things to remember for social recommendation–is to ask for it! If you have happy clients, ask them if they’d mind recommending you via their social networking and recommendation sites. And if it’s applicable; do the same for them.

Tags: Business, community, recommendation, relationships, Social Media, Technology