How to Write a Good Review on Shared Reviews

The recent start-up product review website known as Shared Reviews has been getting a lot of attention.

In just a few months since it's full public release in February Shared Reviews has risen to above position 70,000 in traffic as counted by Alexa. The site is based on the premise that people want to know what other people experience when they use products. The developers of the site are committed to sharing the site revenues with the participants in a 50-50 split. So 50% of each month's earnings are divided between people who write reviews and people who vote for reviews, placing them in top positions within categories.

So... would you like a piece of this pie? It's really easy to get started.

That said, the site has had its share of bumps with bad reviews which then need to be pulled. But I'll assume that you aren't planning to copy material from another site, or plagiarize. (If you do you are very likely to be caught and banned. It has happened to many who thought they could earn an easy buck.)

But, you are someone who would like to share your valid experiences about products, and be paid to do so. Let's say that you've signed up at SR, gone to the forums and read the User Guide, and made some tentative friendships. This is all good, but you will probably feel that you still don't quite know what makes a good review.

Things to do:

First of all, the requirement for a review is only a measly 750 characters, yes, that's right, characters. This does not mean that a 750-character review is a good one. There are a few that short which are ok, but generally you need to tell someone a lot more about your experience. So plan on writing at least a few paragraphs.

Secondly, you need to say more than "the product was pink and I enjoyed using it." A good review will explain various aspects of the product, and how well you feel it performed in these areas. What kinds of features you describe somewhat depends on the category the product fits in. Some reviews that list the pros and cons of a product get good comments, so this is a technique that works well for some people.

If you have owned the product long enough to know how well it lasts, so much the better. It's probably best if reviews are not on products which are so out of date that nothing similar can be purchased. However, reviews on some products that are no longer in production work where there seems to be an availability of the item from close-out sources or as a used product.

Be sure to include your personal experiences. That is what Shared Reviews is all about. Tell as much of your interaction with the product as you are comfortable with. This is not a site where you just want to copy the information off the box. In fact, that will get you banned! Of course, you may want to include active ingredients, or compare reality with some claim from the packaging, but to just regurgitate company literature is a sure way to get in trouble.

Use good grammar and spelling. We all make typos and occasional errors. But you can NOT edit reviews once they are published, at all, period. So check your work carefully. If you know that your writing skills are not too great there are people in the forums who are willing to help you improve (just as volunteers, no snide remarks made and no expectation of reward). Reviews with so many errors that it detracts from the review may be removed from the site. This has been inconsistent, but not unheard of. People who write well are likely to receive more votes. More votes equals more revenue.

Things you must not do:

In the past you could not review free products. This policy has recently changed. Free products may be reviewed but if the quality of the content of the review is not good the review may be pulled. The administrators state that reviews of free trial offers are not acceptable. So there is still some ambiguity here. If you write about a free product, just be sure that you do a good job.

Do not post a review that you have posted elsewhere. Even though you wrote it, and thus it is not plagiarized, all content on SR must be original. The owners have hopes of marketing good reviews to third parties, and the content must be unique. Any number of people have been banned for testing this theory. Just write a new review for SR and you will be fine.

Do not review a brand or a store. Each review must be targeted to a specific product. Don't just say that you love to shop at Baby Gap because it has blah, blah, blah. You must review a specific product that you bought there. Then you can also add that you love to shop there because....

Do not write advice columns, how-tos or rants about how much you dislike or like a certain category of products. These will inevitably be reported as "Not a Product Review."

Do not review web sites.

Do not write reviews that don't fit the category structure. There are high hopes among some of the writers that the categories will be improved greatly before too much longer. Meanwhile, just stuffing a review somewhere that it does not fit will probably end up with it being pulled.

Choosing a title:

You have only 50 characters to grab people's attention. What should you say? There is one school of thought in the forums that would like people to give the product name and a short review. For example: "Dawn Dish Soap - Clearly the Best." Other people like catchy or creative titles. A good example is a recently popular review entitled "Budgie Jumpin! - Watch your parakeets fly!" So, you decide what works for you.

The first 150 or so characters of your review will show up, as well as the title, on the category pages, so you want to begin your review with a few well-chosen words, since these will also appear with your title. These are your chance to grab a reader's attention.

Choosing a category:

Each item must be placed in a category and a sub-category. You should choose a category which fits the manufacturers planned use. For example, a hydration pack was removed from "ATV Accessories" and moved to "Outdoor Equipment" because that is where it needs to be to be monetized. Another example is that a pair of work gloves was removed from "Work Clothes" and replaced in "Gloves."

As mentioned above, the category structure needs help. The developers are aware of this, but it is going to be one mother of a job, and for now we just have to deal with it. They may tweak this a little bit each month. If you are unsure of where to put something ask around in the forum. You will always find helpful people there.

Navigating the required fields:

There are blanks for Brand and Model. This doesn't fit all categories too well. For example in books or movies. But if you take a few minutes to look at some other reviews in the category you will begin to see a pattern of what has been placed in those blanks.

First you need to choose if you own the item or have tried it. It is best (unless it's a hotel review, or something like that) if you own the product. There is some ongoing discussion as to whether just test-driving a car qualifies you to write an "I tried it" review. So far, the consensus seems to be that if you have used something enough to write some good details about your experience that it's ok, but the verdict is still out on that.

You also need to enter a price if you say that you own it. This is a text field, and you can enter things like "gift," or "I don't remember." That said, this does not make for a high-quality review. If you can look it up on line and enter at least an approximate price, it is better.

There are several sets of 1-5 ratings which you will be required to enter for every review. Some of them don't make a lot of sense, but forge ahead as best you can. When the site was set up, it appears that the developers didn't quite anticipate the range of items which could fit in a category, and some of the things you will be asked to rate just seem ludicrous. If you can't make any sense of one for your item just enter a 0, and offer an explanation in the text.

You should enter an overall rating, and your level of experience. These seem rather self-explanatory. One really great feature is that you can enter custom fields to rate. Good general ideas for this field might be "value for the money," or "how likely would I be to buy this product again." Other custom ideas may be obvious as you are thinking about the item you are reviewing.

You can also use a picture. There has been a lot of discussion about the legal use of photos. Since the site hopes to sell some reviews to third parties, the safest, and most personal is to take pictures of your own product. You are asked, when you upload the picture, if you have the right to use it. Although there are a lot of posted pictures which have been taken from company web sites, I cannot recommend that you do this!

You can also upload your own video. The upload function does not work well. The video will be half-again as dark as your original. It will take a long, long time to upload because it translates to flash as it uploads. It will not take videos of more than a couple of minutes in length. But if you can deal with all of these problems, a video will put you in a queue for random display of the review on the home page.

Adding tags:

The last thing you are asked to do is add tags. These are words that help search engines find your review and bring traffic (read "money") to the site. You should include generic terms which describe your product, and the name brand. For a telephone you might enter "telephone, cordless telephone, desk phone, AT&T phone.

Why you should write right the first time:

There is currently no approval system for reviews before they are posted. You can, either out of ignorance, or by choice, violate all of the above guidelines, and your review will go live. HOWEVER, it can be, and probably will be, reported for any of the above problems. This is a big hassle for you and those who may have voted for your review.

If you have a review pulled, at the very least you will lose a point of your SS (Share Score). This is a reputation score which determines how many votes you have to "spend" each month.

All the people who voted for you may also lose SS if your review is pulled. This does not make people happy!

And, of course, if you are copying, plagiarizing, not really writing reviews, or spamming, you will be banned forever from the site.

Tell everyone about your product experiences!

This information was first posted on June 15, 2008, and last edited on July 20, 2008. This is a display-only article, so it will be edited when significant changes to the process at SR occur.

The participants at Shared Reviews welcome new reviewers, who are good writers, with open arms. It is not a good-old-boys club that tries to keep newbies at arms length. If you write well, and participate in the forums so that people get to know you, you will get votes. Come on over!

Here is additional information to help you decide in which category your products belong
(not all categories have been described yet- I'm working on it!)
Automotive Category descriptions
Computer Category descriptions
Fitness Category descriptions
Garden & Tool Category descriptions
Office Category descriptions
Recreation Category descriptions

Shared Reviews