Smart retail chains and online stores pay attention to what gets said about their businesses because they know that a single complaint can spread to many potential customers. This truth has been heightened by social media and online forums, where consumers can spread reviews to thousands of people that they have never even met.

The Internet now puts people in contact with each other over long distances and across social divides. People tweeting from Phoenix apartments can communicate with people they have never met in other cities such as Dallas, L.A., New York and Chicago. The impact of social networking on retail chains, therefore, is worth paying attention to, and stores are ready to do just that to attract more customers.

As more and more people turn to the Internet to decide where they should shop, more and more retail stores have realized that they can get the best reviews by rewarding their customers for posting positive things. By offering freebies, they can entice customers to post positive reviews that encourage other people to shop at the store.

If you don’t use a strong social networking tool like Twitter, then you can probably forget about getting in on the best giveaways. Now that retailers know they get the best results by rewarding customers for posting reviews, it is unlikely that they will offer as many freebies to random people just for signing up. Instead, the stores want something more in return for their stuff.

When posting tweets in hopes that you will get freebies, remember to consider the impact of your message. Posting about a positive experience is a good thing that can benefit you and a trustworthy company. Telling anything other than the truth, though, could mean that companies get good publicity even though they don’t respect their customers. In the end, that could come back to haunt you when you read reviews by others.