In the not too distant past if a rumour started about a retail company it probably took an industry magazine or a national newspaper to let us all know that good or bad things were happening. 

Back in the day we learnt from our closest people who are our friends, family, work colleagues about how good/bad a company was on living up to the 'advertised' promises it made.

Fast forward to today and most up to date retailers are keen to deploy some kind of 'Review' platform in order they can showcase their 'reputation' score, which is great as long as you have searched for the company, or gone to the website where the 'reputation' badge of honour is displayed, and guess what, yes, we are all still very cynical because we also read about how many of the online reviews we are exposed to are in fact fake. 

Lots of brands and companies already know how to 'game' the review platforms they work with, in fact if you ask for a review early enough in the post sale process chances are you'll bag yourself a positive review, because it's too early for anything to have gone wrong and the review algorithm will work in their favour!

When I read reports like the one in the link below and see charts like the one above the one thing that comes across to me is how much effort I have to put in just to find out if you are who, and what you say you are.

This is old school thinking, with 3.5 billion people on a variety of social networks around the globe my view is now influenced not by what you want to tell me, but by those people who I used to go to before all this digital intrusion, I get real time views, comments, and also access to their tribe who will all have a perspective on your reputation - all on social media.

Because you still think it's a place to advertise and promote what it is you do, you've forgotten one of the most important skills in a social environment, which is to 'listen'.