Do blog reviews influence your choice of restaurant or product?

[MmeLindor]

I wrote about a blog that went viral when an irate chef replied to a review.

It got me wondering about reviews. Some blogs have a lot of reviews, some hardly any any.

Do reviews influence you? Would a review by a blogger you already know and trust influence you more? How many reviews are too many?

I know that MNBN don't accept blogs that have a high ratio of reviews to the network (which I think is good).

Yes absolutely I would need to know and trust the blogger. There are too many with axes to grind, or where you wouldn't trust they weren't getting a backhander, or where you already think they have bad judgement because they've eg slagged off a recipe that worked really well for you.

ooh, yes the axe to grind thing is tricky.

And the 'unreasonable expectations' one where the blogger rants about something that I would not have even noticed -

That is tricky on sites such as Trip Advisor where you might not look at the reviews, just go by the stars given.

But on Trip Advisor you're getting a bigger sample size so it's more likely to be representative. I don't take a huge amount of notice of a single review but if there are 40 with a low average that suggests there's something wrong with the place.

That is true. I've found some great places through TA tbh.

I tend to take any all of reviews, whether professional or on a blog or a site like Trip Advisor with a grain of salt. I would need to see more than one bad review of some place before I wouldn't go there.

Or more than one good one before I did go there.

We're all human and all have bad days. Even professional reviewers. [hgrin]

Yes, I am the same Tee. I have had great recommendations and hated the place that people have sent me to.