Feedback loops are a vital part of the digital ecosystem for small businesses.

If you’ve subscribed or purchased anything from a business or brand through a digital channel (search, social, email, etc.), you’ve likely encountered the “we’d love to get your feedback” communication at some point.

While this is an important aspect for internal use – improving their products or services – it’s one of many feedback mechanisms that exist online.

When you look at the larger picture of the digital world, picking up signals from the offline world is a nice way to gain insights into how relevant a particular small business or brand is online to a particular audience.

While there is a lot of noise online, there are important systems that allow digital platforms to understand this relevance. Here are a few.

Reviews

We all know the importance of online reviews – they serve as the backbone of the larger feedback system.

Directly submitted by users of the products or services, reviews allow different platforms to understand not only how popular a small business is, but also relative metrics for quality – over time.

The integrity of review systems are hardening (ensuring only genuine experiences are represented) and it makes this form of feedback one of the most important pillars online.

Photos, Videos & Other Visual Content

Photos, videos and other visual content can be uploaded online by not just your small business, but also your customers.

As digital systems get more sophisticated, user generated media becomes an important indicator of authenticity – and relevance – and gives the digital ecosystems “eyes” on what’s happening in and around a small business or brand.

Forums & Online Groups

Outside of reviews, another place it’s common to find feedback about a small business or brand is in forums and other online groups.

Facebook groups, Reddit and other digital forums bring together groups of users that often look for recommendations from other users in those groups.

Being frequently, organically mentioned in these groups is a valuable source of feedback for users and platforms alike.

Other Off-Site Mentions

It’s not uncommon for small businesses to pick up mentions on other websites – in particular local news or other online publications and blogs as part of their off-site portfolio.

Over time, these build a nice way to direct traffic from those sources to your small business website and offers another valuable feedback loop for digital platforms.

Interactions With Your Digital Properties

Last but not least, one additional feedback loop that often gets missed are actual interactions with your digital properties through those platforms.

When a user clicks on your business listing, searches for you directly or is actively engaged with your search & social activity, it’s a great way to get an understanding of how relevant your small business is to those particular users.

You Exist Online To Connect

No small business or website exists in isolation online.

The purpose of being online is to connect with potential customers and clients, so gaining feedback from those potential customers and clients is important for determining how relevant you are, over time.

If you look back at my post about symmetry, you can think about feedback as a sort of symmetry of its own — this symmetry largely reflects the interactions between your customers and audience and your small business.

As you start looking through your online presence, think about how and where your small business is mentioned — and how that could serve as potential feedback for improving your relevance online.