When it comes to online shopping, reviews have a massive role to play. Whenever people check out a product or service online, there will more often than not be reviews. Most people use these to determine whether or not they’ll go ahead and make the purchase. Reviews can therefore be very influential and powerful. In this article, we’ll look at how online review habits have been changing in younger people over the years.
Streaming
One of the main ways we consume digital content is through streaming. A while ago, Netflix was pretty much the only streaming service around. Nowadays, however, it has plenty of competitors, including Disney+, Apple TV+, Amazon Prime Video and more. A growing number of people who write online reviews are writing about something they’ve streamed. It could be a TV show, a film or even a video game.
Lots of people use platforms such as YouTube and Twitch for streaming. With YouTube, you can stream all sorts of content in real time. As for Twitch, this is mostly for streams of video games. With Twitch especially, people gain opinions of games (including regular video games and casino games) by watching others play and seeing their reactions. Watching streams can help people decide whether a game’s suitable for them or not. It also influences reviews, should people choose to write them.
Before streaming was mainstream, people would mostly be writing reviews about things they’d watched or played through traditional means. These include terrestrial TV, cinemas and video game consoles not connected to the internet.
Social Media
Platforms such as Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram and TikTok encourage people to share all sorts of content with one another over the internet. People happily share things not just with people they know, but also with complete strangers. Social media has encouraged many people to develop the habit of writing reviews and recommending products and services in order to help other people out.
As well as leaving reviews on a product or service’s main page, lots of people, especially younger ones, will write reviews on their own social media pages. The aim here is to let their friends, family and colleagues know about whatever it is they’re reviewing.
Rewards
There are various schemes where people can earn something for writing reviews. The reward could be a voucher, a free trial of something or even some cash. The thought of earning a reward encourages people who might not have written a review, to write one. Having an incentive is a good way of getting more reviews and gaining more customer feedback in the process.
These days, schemes that involve rewards for reviews are way more common than they were several years ago. They’ve become quite widespread thanks to the ongoing popularity of online shopping and the need sellers have for reviews.
How Reviews Vary
Reviews can be long or short, brief or detailed – it depends on who’s writing them and for what audience. You’ll find that for online games or online casinos, for example, most of the reviews are on the longer side. They usually cover everything the site or the game has to offer.
There’s a reason online game reviews tend to be long: people looking to gamble online want to make sure the site they join is legit. Having reviews that go into depth is a big help when it comes to deciding on which casino to join or which game to play.