11/7/17
Estarer, a seller on Amazon, is wanting to promote their line of business laptop backpacks. These are perfect for the commuter! Durable and stylish, and large enough for a 17.3″ laptop!
Please check out the bag here, and then use the promo code GFFKFS86 for 20% off this bag at checkout!
Blue Ribbons Review is back and better than ever!
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One important thing to remember when you are getting a fidget spinner is weight! The solid metal ones are usually the heaviest, and therefore the most satisfying experience. You also want one that operates with as minimal friction as possible so that it can spin for a really long time (at least 3 minutes is good I think).
03/08/17 – Early in 2016 Walmart discontinued their Spark Reviewer program. But today Walmart has reached out to former Spark Reviewers to say that they are starting up the program once again:
Spark, like Amazon’s Vine, is a invitation only program. In order to be picked you must be a Walmart customer who leaves reviews on the Walmart website. Walmart lists these things as criteria to consider to write a review they consider good:
3/20/17 –
https://www.kinzd.com/product/slim-wallet/
https://www.kinzd.com/product/money-clip/
https://www.kinzd.com/
My original post about how to get into reviewing was (and remains) quite popular but it occurs to me that I should write an update, as the reviewing world has changed drastically since that post with Amazon’s TOS changing.
If you have not done so already, familiarize yourself with Amazon’s new reviewing policies if you are going to review primarily on Amazon.
There are still other sites you can review on besides Amazon. Xberts, Fat Wallet and Slick Deals come to mind. And probably the best way to review is on other social media or your own blog. Admittedly, getting into reviewing now is hard if you don’t already have a large audience or a solid reviewing reputation. Everyone has to start somewhere though.
Here is my advice then for starting out:
I like reviewing on Instagram because it’s such an easy way to review. I use Instagram as a supplement to my other Amazon Vine reviews or my YouTube reviews. I don’t have a huge following on Instagram, but it’s so easy to send photos there that I already have on hand from the main review process I don’t know why you wouldn’t consider it.
The main advantage/drawback to Instagram is that you can only post to it via mobile device, which can be a bit limiting. At first this was a huge mental hurdle for me, but now I am quite accustomed to it, and I have even linked other social media outlets to Instagram via IFTTT, so posts I make to Instagram can auto post across the rest of my platforms. You can also do this kind of thing with Hootsuite which I am a HUGE fan of as well. Hootsuite works with Instagram, but you still have to manually post all Instagram via your mobile. Still, using these tools is a huge time saver, and I highly recommend employing one or both of them.
Gaining followers on Instagram is not as easy as it is on Pinterest or Twitter, but if you spend time on there on a regular basis, you can gather a following. It requires a lot of liking other people’s posts, posting regularly, commenting on other’s posts and befriending other people. Basically networking! I don’t have the kind of time to spend on my own Instagram, but I do manage other Instagram accounts as part of my job, and with those I do put in the effort and it does show.
Instagram is also the most visually appealing of all the social media outlets. I like it even more than Pinterest which sometimes seems a bit cluttered looking. Instagram is very simplistic and clean looking. Definitely worth a look I’d say!
I have had a strange couple of weeks with Amazon. They first determined that they were going to delete some Vine member reviews, apparently they had too many Vine reviews on some products and wanted to make way for some other customer reviews. My first thought was that if they didn’t want so many reviews, why send out so much product to be reviewed? While my reaction was one of “Ok, whatever”, some Vine members were angry about it, their stance being they spent so much time on these reviews only to have them deleted seems like a huge waste, and also they were angry about all the positive votes being lost on deleted items. The latter is a good point, but still… not anything that was going to affect me too much either way. I find that my Vine reviews don’t get as many up-votes as my non Vine reviews (with a few exceptions).
The next issue that came up did hit me a bit harder. All but 5 of my most recent reviews vanished. I had over 1,500 reviews. My ranking was still in tact, but the reviews were gone, and so were all the positive up-votes. This was a bit of a shock to my system. I reached out to Amazon to inquire about it. Two days later I got a message from the review department saying they were reinstating all the reviews and offering an apology for the inconvenience.
Then, a few days after that my review ranking went from being in the top 500, down to 179,058, and I lost my top reviewer badge. That is a bigger jump than I have ever had, and quite a demotion! This ranking stayed in place for 3 days but mysteriously refreshed again and I was reinstated back to my prior ranking complete with my old badge.
Not sure what is happening over at Amazon, but it seems that they are further tweaking their reviewing system and stats.
It’s been several weeks since the big policy announcement regarding discounted and free product reviews on Amazon. It has had a dramatic effect on the number of emails that I get, I’d say emails are down 50% as most sellers have given up their review programs outright to presumably focus elsewhere. Many sellers are still offering discount codes and free product, but not requiring an Amazon review – and some even expressly forbid an Amazon review, instead they ask the review be put on other social media outlets. The review clubs seem to also be adapting to this new style. I rarely used review clubs in the past, and I haven’t at all since the change but I do get email solicitations and on the surface it seems that they have all made significant changes. Either they require reviews on other social media but not Amazon, or they are offering their products at a discount instead of free. Is that sustainable for them? I guess we’ll see.
The situation is still evolving and I suspect if you ask me in a few more weeks how things are going, there will probably be more developments.
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