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As a marketer, which of these would you find more useful?

Tweet: @sumbuddy dont buy the BrandCo table it sux–hasnt stood up at all

or

On site review: (2 stars) For what we paid for this table, my husband and I expected something more durable. The wood dents way too easily for a kids’ table. We expected a lot more from BrandCo.

While both product reviews are negative, the on-site review giving a client’s product two stars might make us cringe a bit more than a single Tweet (even if the Tweet was as specific as the other review). But the on-site review might also be the better marketing tool, at least according to Ad Age today.

Ad Age contends that product reviews are more useful to companies and marketers than the oft-touted media sweethearts of social media: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube (the triumvirate of YouTwitFace), and the like.

The big difference between those on-site reviews and the other feedback (aside from the fact that the rest of the feedback is spread throughout the Internet instead of right at the point of purchase)?

And while Twitter conversation and Facebook chatter is interesting and important, it’s not structured, and can be difficult for marketers to implement into their processes. Review data, on the other hand, address a particular product — and when a consumer is in the mode to talk about it.

People do tend to be more specific in on-site reviews. And while site owners can just make negative reviews go away, that doesn’t mean they should. In fact, the Ad Age article gives specific examples of companies that took negative reviews to heart, examined the criticized product and actually worked to improve it.

The Ad Age article has a sidebar with five techniques to use reviews right:

• Embrace the feedback—”Both the positive and negative feedback provides hints to what you’re doing well and where improvement is needed.”
• Figure out who needs to know—Have someone who can react and fix product problems to read the low-rated reviews
• Tout customers’ favorites—positive product reviews “can make great ad copy.”
• Incorporate customer service—Let customer service reps know about potential product problems or complaints in reviews
• Don’t stop there—If your customers really enjoy talking about your products, develop a larger community. Oriental Trading Co., for example, “asks users to help solve each others’ problems and share their stories.”

We’ve discussed the same phenomenon with five ways negative reviews could actually help your online reputation. Andy’s fifth reason take the use of negative reviews to another level:

Learn from competitors’ mistakes. Don’t just read your negative reviews, read those of your competitors. If you learn where your rivals keep slipping-up, you can fine-tune your offering to make sure you don’t make the same mistake. Better still, how about reaching out to an unhappy customer of one of your competitors and fixing their problem—you could win a new customer for life!

What other ways can negative reviews lead to a better product or help companies?