Small businesses that have collected at least some customer reviews, either by directly asking customers to do so or being lucky enough that their customers proactively leave a review for them on a relevant social media platform or directory listing, might as well make those testimonials work for their businesses as much as possible. It doesn’t matter if you receive customer reviews on your Google My Business listing, LinkedIn, your Facebook Page, or an industry-specific site like Zillow (for real estate agents), TripAdvisor (for the travel industry), Yelp, The Knot (for the bridal industry) or something else, you can repurpose that client feedback as part of your social media content and on your website.

Here are 3 ways to use customer reviews in your online marketing.

3 Ways to Use Customer Reviews in your Online Marketing

First and probably the most obvious way to utilize customer reviews to benefit your online marketing is using each review as social media content. By copying and pasting the customer review into a new post, or better yet, a graphic sized to whichever social media platforms you use for your small business, you can easily incorporate those collected customer reviews as part of your social media content. Of course, you don’t want to endlessly toot your own horn, but customer testimonials add credibility to your knowledge and experience so they should be weaved into your overall online marketing content strategy.

When you create your customer review post or image, make sure to include the name of the person who gave the review, and plan to post those reviews steadily over time, especially if you don’t receive a high number of them. 

You can make this process easier by creating one or more image templates to use for any and all review posts. Even better, create a spreadsheet where can you record each testimonial, what sizes of images you’ll make for it, if you’ve posted that review to each of your social media platforms, what the copy to go with the post will be, and the website link you’ll associate with that review image if you are pinning it on Pinterest. (If you’re a landscaper and your customer review discusses your pergola design work, link your pergola page to your review graphic.)

Next, I want to address Instagram Highlights as their own point and way to use the customer reviews you collect. Yes, Instagram Highlights are part of your social media strategy; however Highlights remain prominently positioned on your Instagram profile until you should decide to remove them, so the Highlights you create and post have a much, much longer life than any other social media post you could make. There are so many ways to approach your Instagram Highlights strategy, but building a Highlight that’s dedicated to your online reviews is always going to be a strong Highlight to have.

Let’s jump over to your website for the third way to use your customer reviews in your online marketing. The easiest way to add those reviews onto your website is to have a testimonials page. However, to be as effective as possible with your online reviews, you are much better off strategically placing reviews onto the pages those reviews correspond to. So if you’re a real estate agent and review a review from a family you helped relocate from out of state, place that review on your relocation page.

Customer reviews provide social proof and can help a potential customer move closer to becoming your newest customer. Repurposing those reviews enhances your social media strategy and website.