With more than 13,000 members, the Gainesville Word of Mouth Facebook page has a strong impact on the community.
If a Facebook user scrolls down the page, the user sees reviews of different businesses that range from restaurants and grocery stores to plumbing services and hair salons, among others, all located in Gainesville.
“Gainesville Word of Mouth allows people to get recommendations from other people right in our community rather than relying on other internet sites that may be giving biased reviews based on advertising,” said Lydia Gillespie, one of the main administrators of the Facebook page.
Ronny Herrera, the president of Reef House Media in Gainesville, a company that focuses on marketing local businesses, said he noticed the group was gaining popularity and decided to write an article on Linkedin.com regarding the influence the Gainesville Word of Mouth page could have on a business.
“The sheer fact that 1 in 10 people in Gainesville have a chance to see this negative review makes it very likely that people would avoid that business,” Herrera wrote in an email.
Herrera also said the Facebook page has the potential to help smaller businesses that don’t have the money to do extensive advertising if people post good reviews.
“Positive reviews most certainly drive people to these places, which is good for the local economy,” Herrera said.
Samantha Choy, a UF finance and psychology sophomore, said she trusts the Facebook group because the users are people who know Gainesville.
“You can depend on Yelp, you can depend on all these other websites, but these are coming from real people from Gainesville,” Choy said.
Users get to use social media to share information on the page that influences where customers flock.
“We really admire the many business owners who are members of the group, and their willingness to embrace the power of social media and to see it as an opportunity to strengthen their relationships with their patrons,” Gillespie said.
[A version of this story ran on page 3 on 6/18/15]
