I’ve been trying to expand my review platforms from more than just Goodreads, leading me to other book review sites like Booklikes and Bookaxe, and then also to a more generalized review site called Smashbomb.
Recently, Smashbomb reached out to me for an honest review in exchange for them sharing me in their newsletter and on their Facebook page. Naturally, I agree.
An Honest Review Site.
Smashbomb is a review site for all sorts of entertainment: apps, games, music, and of course books. Their main concern is the growing problem of fake reviews that pollute many large review sites. In fact, the government started prosecuting fake Amazon reviews this year.
Instead of people leaving anonymous reviews, you can get book reviews and recommendations from people you know and trust, whether it’s your friends, family, or your favorite influencers.
If you’re an influencer yourself, or aspiring to be one, you can get some exposure on Smashbomb for your own projects. You can link back to your blog in your profile and leave video reviews from your YouTube channel. As Smashbomb grows, you have the potential to get more views and clicks for your blog and channel.
Not only can you leave reviews and ratings, but you can add items not currently in Smashbomb’s system, create lists, and create and participate in communities called Orbs.
While it’s nice that you can check out the profiles of all the reviewers and get recommendations from people you trust, their system isn’t foolproof. If Smashbomb becomes a go-to site for reviews, then what’s to stop people from building a well-crafted and maintained profile to sell fake reviews? However, it’s small enough right now where the reviews should be trustworthy because there’s not currently much incentive to put a bunch of fake reviews on Smashbomb.
Kudos Points and Badges
Smashbomb encourages user engagement through Kudos Points (KP) and Badges.
You earn badges by accomplishing specific achievements. Most badges are earned by other users giving you KP for your reviews. You can put these badges on your Smashbomb profile, and even embed them into your blog and social media accounts. They’re a nice ego boost and they look cool. However, the only real benefit the badges have is for people to possibly trust your opinion a little more.
Kudos Points have a little more use. The more KP you get, the more exposure you gain. Let’s say I give you KP for a good review. If I do, then your review will pop up in my follower’s feeds.
You also have more influence in the Smashbomb community when you have more KPs. There’s a limit on the amount of KP you can hand out a day, but the more KP you have yourself, the higher the limit.
Aside from that, there aren’t many current benefits for KP. There are a few giveaways that you can be eligible to enter have you hit a KP level. Right now, there are only about a dozen giveaways to enter, and the minimum KP requirement is pretty low on all of them. But as Smashbomb grows, the number of giveaways, and the variety will hopefully grow as well.
Another KP benefit Smashbomb hopes to do in the future is giving reviewers with the most KPs free stuff in exchange for honest reviews. That is good news for anyone joining Smashbomb now because it’s currently really easy to collect KP. However, it’s still not a feature, just hopefully one that will happen in the future.
You can get KPs from almost anything, including:
- adding products to Smashbomb
- publishing a review
- completing the daily missions
- from other users
As far as I can tell, there’s no limit to how many KP you can earn in a day, so it’s really easy to become a power user practically overnight. Adding your past reviews to Smashbomb will give you a lot of KP at once.
If you really want to get a lot of KP quickly, then adding products is the way to do it. If you go onto Smashwords and start adding all the new releases onto Smashbomb, you could get hundreds of KP within a day.
Pros and Cons of Smashbomb
There are a lot of positives and negatives to Smashbomb. It’s a user-friendly platform that has a lot of potential, but at the same time, its setup isn’t foolproof. If the site gets big enough then fake reviews will be a problem, just like on any other review site. But if it’s too small it won’t provide adequate information. On the other hand, it’s nice that it’s small. It’s easier to get noticed and, because you can link back to your blog and post video reviews from your YouTube channel, you can possibly get more exposure. At the same time, a lot of the benefits to being a Smashbomb power user is the potential for greatness down the road.
Pros:
- User-friendly platform
- Fun to use
- Exposure to blog and YouTube channel
- An easy way to share your opinions
- Allows you to connect with others about things that you love
- Easy to get Kudos Points
- You get to enter exclusive Smashbomb giveaways if you have enough KP.
- Potential for top users to get free stuff to review in the future.
- Reviews are probably more reliable than many bigger sites.
Cons:
- Doesn’t completely stop fake reviews
- Still a small site, so many products only have a few reviews and ratings
- Not many tangible benefits for Kudos Points yet
- Only about a dozen giveaway offers on the site right now
In Conclusion:
Whether or not Smashbomb will become the go-to review site remains to be seen. Right now they are still fairly small but growing. It’s fun and easy to add reviews and products and there’s a chance of getting exposure. While a lot of the benefits to Smashbomb are still in the future, it’s exciting to join now and be part of something that could be big.