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Facebook Reviews Management: The Complete Guide

Understanding and effectively managing Facebook recommendations have become paramount for businesses seeking to establish credibility and foster customer trust.

What are Facebook Reviews / Facebook Recommendations?

Facebook recommendations allow users to express whether they recommend a business or not on business pages on Facebook. Instead of assigning a numerical star rating, users can leave a brief written review along with their recommendation status. These recommendations appear prominently on a business's Facebook Page under the "Reviews" tab, providing valuable insights for potential customers evaluating the business.

Facebook Reviews Stats: How Important They Are

Understanding the significance of Facebook reviews is crucial for any business looking to leverage social proof to drive growth. Here are some compelling statistics that highlight the importance of managing your Facebook reviews effectively:

Facebook holds 19% of all customer reviews. In other words, one in every 5 online reviews is on Facebook 

Facebook is a major player in the review landscape, capturing a substantial share of all customer reviews online ( ReviewsTrackers )

18.3% of U.S. adults made a purchase through Facebook last year

In the last year, nearly 20% of U.S. adults made a purchase on Facebook. This shows the significant impact the platform has on consumer purchasing behavior. The data comes from eMarketer 's research. This underscores the importance of having positive reviews and recommendations to attract buyers.

2 out of 3 Facebook users visit a business page at least once a week

Businesses can benefit greatly from being active on Facebook, as many users regularly interact with business Pages ( Facebook ). Regular interactions and reviews from these users can significantly impact local customer engagement and loyalty.

54% of users use Facebook to learn about new brands and products

Over half of Facebook users see the platform as their primary source for discovering new brands and products ( Oberlo ). This highlights the critical role of reviews in influencing first impressions and shaping brand perception.

66% of users are likely to share their thoughts, experiences, and opinions on their purchases

The majority of users will share their purchasing experiences on Facebook, making it a vibrant space for feedback ( Reviews Trackers ).

Best Practices for Managing Facebook Recommendations

Businesses can improve customer relationships and service quality by following best practices for managing Facebook recommendations. This includes using both positive and negative feedback as opportunities for growth.

While businesses cannot control every recommendation they receive, proactive management can influence overall sentiment and perception, so your brand should:

• Encourage Positive Recommendations: Provide excellent products, services, and customer experiences to encourage satisfied customers to leave positive recommendations.
• Monitor and Respond: Regularly monitor your Facebook Page and promptly respond to feedback to show appreciation or address concerns.
• Use Feedback Constructively: Leverage insights from recommendations to identify areas for improvement and refine your business strategies.
• Embrace Transparency: Transparency in handling both positive and negative feedback demonstrates authenticity and builds trust with your audience.

Effectively managing Facebook recommendations involves more than just monitoring feedback; it requires strategic and thoughtful engagement to foster positive relationships and mitigate negative experiences. Here are best practices for responding to both positive and negative recommendations:

How to Respond to Positive Reviews

When customers recommend your business, thanking them can build loyalty and inspire others to share their positive experiences. Here are some tips for responding to positive recommendations:

• Express Gratitude: Always start with a thank you. Acknowledge their effort in leaving a recommendation.
• Encourage Continued Engagement: Invite them to return or try new products or services.

How to Respond to Negative/ Bad Reviews

You should always respond to negative reviews. Negative recommendations offer an opportunity to address issues and demonstrate your commitment to customer satisfaction. Here are some tips for responding to negative feedback:

• Stay Calm and Professional: Responding calmly and professionally is crucial to maintaining your business’s reputation.
• Acknowledge the Issue: Validate their concerns by acknowledging the specific issue they raised.
• Apologize and Offer Solutions: Apologize for their experience and provide a solution or next steps to resolve the issue.
• Have a private conversation : Suggest talking in private to avoid a public argument and find a more personalized solution.

Example Responses:

• "Thank you for bringing this to our attention, [Customer Name]. We apologize for your experience with [specific issue]. Please contact us at [contact information] so we can make things right."
• "We’re sorry to hear about your experience, [Customer Name]. Your feedback is important to us, and we’re committed to resolving this issue. Please reach out to us directly at [contact information] so we can discuss further and ensure a better experience next time."

FAQs about Facebook Business Reviews

Accessing and managing Facebook recommendations is straightforward:

• Navigate to your business's Facebook Page.
• Click on the "Reviews" tab below the page's name.

If you're wondering how to write a review on Facebook, follow these steps:

• Find the Business Page: Use the search bar at the top of the screen to find the business you want to review.
• Navigate to the Reviews Tab
• Leave Your Recommendation: Click on "Yes" to recommend the business or "No" if you don't recommend it.
• Write Your Review: After selecting your recommendation status, a text box will appear. Write your review, sharing your experience and any specific details you'd like others to know.
• Submit: Click "Post" to submit your review.

3. Can I Delete Facebook Recommendations?

If you're wondering how you can delete a review on Facebook, you can't. Facebook does not allow businesses to delete reviews or recommendations unless they violate community standards or are flagged as spam. This policy ensures transparency and helps maintain the integrity of the review system.

4. How Do I Respond to Facebook Recommendations?

Engaging with customer recommendations demonstrates responsiveness and commitment to customer satisfaction:

• Visit the "Reviews" tab on your Facebook Page.
• Locate the recommendation you wish to respond to.
• Click "Reply" beneath the recommendation and craft your response.

Personalized and timely responses, whether the recommendation is positive or negative, can enhance customer trust and satisfaction.

5. How to Turn Off Reviews on Facebook (And Why You Shouldn't)

While it's possible to turn off reviews on your page, it's generally not advisable. Disabling reviews can lead to a lack of transparency and may raise suspicion among potential customers. Reviews are crucial for:

• Building Trust: Positive reviews act as social proof, building trust and credibility with potential customers.
• Engagement: Reviews offer opportunities to engage with your audience, showing responsiveness and commitment to customer satisfaction.

If you still wish to turn off reviews, here are the steps:

• Click See all profiles, then select the Page you want to switch into.
• Click your Page's profile photo in the top right.
• Click Settings & privacy, then click Settings.
• Click Page and tagging.
• Toggle Allow others to view and leave reviews on your Page? on or off.

However, rather than turning off reviews, focus on actively managing them to build a positive online reputation and leverage customer feedback to improve your business.

In conclusion, mastering Facebook recommendations involves more than passive management; it requires active engagement and strategic use of social proof to enhance online reputation and influence consumer behavior positively.

By embracing transparency, leveraging customer feedback, and fostering meaningful interactions, businesses can effectively harness the power of Facebook recommendations to drive growth and success in today's competitive digital marketplace.

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Facebook Recommendations: What They Are and How to Get Them

Reputation Staff Writer

Managing a Facebook business page requires commitment, but that commitment pays off in terms of better customer engagement and a stronger online reputation. Keeping up with changes to Facebook’s many built-in services for business pages helps your business take full advantage of what they offer.

Facebook Recommendations are fairly new, and if you’re not familiar with them, you should be. Understanding Facebook Recommendations can help not only with social media management, but also with online reputation management overall.

Recommendations offer more to businesses and consumers than did earlier Facebook Reviews.

What Are Facebook Recommendations?

In August 2018, Facebook updated how consumers interact with local businesses. One of the major ways they did this was by replacing traditional star ratings and reviews with what they call Recommendations . These Recommendations are posted onto business pages in place of reviews and star ratings.

If you had reviews and star ratings on your page before, these legacy Facebook reviews will be converted into Recommendations as follows:

• 1- and 2-star ratings will now bear the label “Not Recommended”
• 3-star ratings will be labeled as “Reviewed”
• 4- and 5-star ratings will now be labeled as “Recommended”
• Star ratings for legacy reviews now appear as an “opinion score” rather than stars

Facebook Recommendations now require users to enter at least 25 characters in order to promote more detailed reviews. This mandatory minimum character count also helps discourage the spammy “1 click, 1 star” Facebook reviews that were a problem in the past.

How Can Recommendations Benefit Your Business?

Facebook Recommendations may include rich content such as photos and tags.

Recommendations appear in users’ newsfeeds when users talk to friends about suggestions for local products and services. Recommendations from users’ news feeds that are shared publicly will be pulled to the business page. For example, if one of your friends is asking for recommendations and you mention a local business by name, your recommendation will be pulled to the local business’s page.

Another great feature of Facebook Recommendations is that people can add sentiment tags and rich content such as photos. The more Recommendations you get, the easier it will be to spot themes and trends, such as what your business is known for and what people like most about it.

How to Get More Facebook Recommendations

The best way to get more Facebook Recommendations is to ask customers for them.

If your business was set up for the old Facebook reviews, you’re already set up to receive Recommendations. If not, you can set it up by doing the following from your Facebook business page:

• Click “Settings”
• Click “Edit Page”
• Under the “Tabs” section, turn the option of “Use default tabs” to “ON”
• Scroll down and click to turn on “Add a tab”
• Add the Reviews tab

As with traditional online reviews, the more Facebook Recommendations your business has, the more accurately it will reflect the service and customer experience your business delivers. In other words, more Recommendations is better. How can you get more? The easiest way is to consistently ask customers for them. You can also place Facebook buttons in your follow-up emails to customers, and have a Facebook-specific call to action on your website.

Facebook Recommendations can help you manage your social media presence and your online reputation better by offering more functionality and helping discourage spam reviews. When you solicit reviews for your business, it’s smart to also ask customers who are Facebook users to leave Facebook Recommendations, as well. For more on social media management and online reputation management, download our report: How to Improve Your Reputation with Effective Social Media Management .

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What Is The Difference Between A Recommendation And A Review On Facebook?

Have you noticed how it now says “Recommendations and Reviews” under the Reviews tab on all Facebook business pages?

The change has confused business owners and customers alike. And if you’re a business owner who understands the importance of customer reviews, it might even be somewhat concerning.

In fact, this change has been in effect for several years now. So you’re not alone in wondering what has happened!

Below, find out the difference between Facebook Reviews and Recommendations, why Facebook made this change, and, most importantly, how to get more Facebook reviews for your business – effectively and organically.

Facebook Reviews Vs Facebook Recommendations

To answer the central question, the main difference between Facebook Recommendations and Facebook Reviews is how customers provide their review.

Facebook Recommendations are still reviews.

But now, on all Facebook Business Pages, instead of Facebook users being asked to “Write a review”, they are asked “Do you recommend [Business Page]?” Users can click “Yes” or “No”, after which they are prompted to write a review and click on select descriptions, such as “Great value” and “Fun atmosphere”.

If submitted, the recommendation appears on the Business Page along with the user’s review (if one is written), which can be liked/reacted to and commented on like a regular post. This also applies when a user does not recommend a business.

But what about star ratings?

You might have noticed that this new process does not involve users providing a star rating – and that’s because it doesn’t. Star ratings still exist, however, calculated by whether or not users recommend the Facebook Business: “Yes” being 5 stars and “No” being 1 star.

It can seem harsh to receive a one-star rating in this way, which makes it all the more important to receive positive Facebook feedback from your customers.

Still, despite the change, recommendations are still labeled as “Reviews” on the tabs section of all Facebook Business Pages.

Why Did Facebook Change Reviews To Recommendations?

Facebook has not provided an official statement as to why it renamed reviews as recommendations. But it is widely thought that the decision was made to increase Business Page engagement for Facebook users, as “recommending” is simply more appealing than writing a review; it’s quicker and requires less effort.

When a Facebook user recommends a business, it can be displayed to their friends (as a normal Facebook post – unless the recommendation is set to private) and this is another reason Facebook made the change: to increase engagement between Facebook users and Business Pages.

Ultimately, since Facebook is a social media platform, it makes sense that they want to make posting reviews quick and more engaging for users.

The Benefits Of Facebook Reviews (Recommendations)

So, what are the benefits of Facebook Recommendations?

If your business is new to Facebook Business Pages, the benefits are worth knowing as, aside from the free word of mouth marketing you’re receiving from your customers, recommendations have more power than you might think!

First, it’s no secret that Facebook is incredibly popular. This is enough of a reason to create a Facebook Business Page and collect customer reviews, since this will work wonders for improving your visibility and appeal.

Facebook Recommendations will also help to promote your business in News Feeds, as well as in search results whenever a user uses Facebook’s search feature to find local businesses.

After all, the more positive recommendations you have, the higher your rating will be, increasing the likeliness of Facebook users being drawn to your business.

What’s more, your Facebook Recommendations can also sometimes appear on Google’s search engine results pages, resulting in organic traffic to your Facebook Page whenever relevant search terms are typed into Google.

Do Facebook Recommendations Improve SEO?

Unfortunately, the short answer here is no: Facebook Recommendations do not have an effect on search engine optimization. This means that even if your Facebook Business Page has many recommendations, it won’t improve how highly you rank on Google’s search engine results pages.

Despite that, don’t forget that recommendations can help your business get promoted in Facebook users’ News Feeds, as well as appear sometimes in Google’s search engine results pages (displayed beside your business in relevant search results).

For businesses looking to improve their reach, both of these are good enough reasons to earn and collect as many Facebook Recommendations as possible.

Can You Request A Recommendation on Facebook?

Now that you know the difference between Recommendations and Reviews—and how important recommendations are—how do you get more of them?

Make sure to remember that recommendations are positive feedback, so requesting a Facebook Recommendation is the same as asking for a positive review. Due to this, it should be done carefully.

Common methods include requesting reviews in person after doing business with a customer, sending email follow-ups, creating Facebook posts, and placing signs or banners in your place of business.

However, it has to be said that these methods are simply not that effective and involve more work than what is necessary.

Get More Facebook Recommendations – The Best Way

Running a business is enough work as it is without throwing review requests into the mix. Unfortunately, getting reviews is important for building a credible reputation and increasing reach, so businesses should not skip it.

Manually requesting reviews requires too much effort – especially since it’s not as effective as it’s thought to be.

The key is to automate review requests . Not only that, however, but to streamline the review process so that posting reviews is made as easy as possible for your customers.

ReputationStacker is a tool that does that for you. It generates real customer reviews for your business, using an effective funnel that even reduces the chances of receiving a negative review.

Getting more Facebook Recommendations doesn’t have to be complicated or difficult – not when your business is using ReputationStacker .

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ian Kirby has been working in digital marketing for over 15 years. Having worked both with and for digital marketing agencies and in-house with multiple companies, he has a specific interest and expertise in online reputation management, online reviews, and the implementation of business systems. Ian’s writing, videos, and interviews have garnered millions of reads, views, and listens.

About Ian Kirby • Ian's Articles

The average ReputationStacker user triples their review count in the first 3 months .

What Facebook’s Switch from Reviews to Recommendations Means for Your Business

by Lyn Wildwood | Jun 8, 2022 | Facebook Reviews , Online Review Marketing | 0 comments

Update : The switch from reviews to Recommendations is now complete. Check out our guide on how to get more Recommendations on Facebook .

Facebook Reviews has become one of the most popular review platforms on the web. They compete with Google Reviews and are overtaking traditional review platforms like Yelp. In an effort to get back to their community-driven roots, Facebook has replaced Facebook Reviews with a new format called Facebook Recommendations.

The most notable change is the removal of ratings. Customers can either recommend or not recommend businesses with testimonials of their experiences using a “Yes” or “No” option. While TrustPilot is adding half-stars to effectively change to a 10-star rating system, Facebook is going from 5 stars to two options: yes or no.

In this post, we’re going to take a deep dive into Facebook Recommendations and explore how they’re replacing Reviews. We’re also going to cover what this means for businesses going forward.

Table of Contents

What are Facebook Recommendations?

Facebook Recommendations are the new Facebook Reviews, as previously stated. The way they work is simple: when a user views your page, they’ll see a section called Recommendations and Reviews near the top. They also have their own user tab previously labelled “Reviews.”

Whichever way they choose to view your business’ recommendations, users are asked a simple question: ”Do you recommend this business?” They can answer “yes” or “no.” That’s the recommendation part. They can then leave a written review as well.

The Anatomy of a Facebook Recommendation

When a user creates a new recommendation, they can add text, images and tags. The text portion must meet a minimum character requirement. They’re also provided auto-generated tags they can use to round out recommendations.

Before posting recommendations, they can choose to make it viewable to the public, to friends only, to themselves only or to select groups through a custom configuration.

Facebook is hoping this design will spawn rich testimonials that benefit customers and local businesses alike. It starts with the minimum character requirement. By forcing customers to write more than a simple one to two-word review, recommendations can help eliminate short testimonials that do nothing to inform other customers or business owners about the pros and cons of a particular business or location.

Similarly, tags provide a quick summary of a business’ top traits. A few examples include “good for groups,” “cozy atmosphere,” and “child-friendly.”

The same goes for “don’t recommend” responses, only the tags list features negative traits, such as “not child-friendly,” “small portions,” and “slow service.”

How Facebook Recommendations are Replacing Facebook Reviews

Recommendations are replacing Reviews. Instead of a star rating and a bit of text, recommendations are intended to provide more help with better written content, plus images, and descriptive tags.

The way in which recommendations are posted are also quite different from reviews. Instead of appearing publicly on a business’ page and only that business’ page, recommendations can be posted anywhere. Users can even choose to only have them viewed by friends.

Speaking of which, recommendations are also part of Facebook’s quest to get back to its roots as a community-driven platform. Not only can users share recommendations with friends, they can request them by asking friends for recommendations in specific cities.

When their friends reply with recommendations, Facebook will automatically link businesses they recommend to their comments. They’ll even attach reviews and addresses.

Businesses also have more power when it comes to reporting fake or unfair recommendations. You can do this with the “Give Feedback On This Recommendation” setting. When you click this, you can report recommendations as being “not relevant,” “unfair,” “harassment,” and more.

Here are a few additional changes, some of which have already been mentioned:

• The change has been rolled out to local businesses.
• The change is part of Facebook’s overhaul of the UI for mobile business pages.
• The Reviews tab on your page is now the Recommendations tab.
• Along with the Recommendations tab, reviews and recommendations have a higher position on your page.
• Your old reviews and ratings will still be visible.

What This Change Means for Your Business

One of the biggest issues you’re likely worrying about is what’s going to happen with the reviews and ratings you already have. You’ll keep the average rating you already have, and your reviews will still be visible wherever reviews and recommendations are showcased.

If you currently have a low rating and are worried this change may lock you into that score forever, don’t fret. Your rating will still go up and down depending on the number of recommendations and anti-recommendations your business receives. Users simply won’t be able to raise or decrease this overall rating with a star rating. Facebook also hasn’t explained exactly how your new rating is calculated.

How to Get Started with Facebook Recommendations

The transition from Reviews to Recommendations should be seamless as Facebook rolls this feature out to more and more users and businesses. You should ensure Recommendations is enabled regardless. Go to Settings → Templates and Tabs → Reviews (may be labelled Recommendations), and ensure the setting is switched to ON.

You’ll also notice a setting called Share Reviews/Recommendations Tab while you’re there. This is a URL you can use to encourage customers to leave recommendations, though we recommend using the ideal link we talked about in a previous article.

This is something you should do as often as possible when you first transition to Recommendations. This is because tags are only auto-generated for businesses who have received a certain number of recommendations.

The Pros of Facebook Recommendations

The biggest advantage Recommendations has over Reviews is how accessible they are . They’ll appear in areas where customers are most likely to find your business on Facebook, such as Maps. They’ll also appear when customers search for your business or talk about it.

Plus, since Recommendations are designed to enhance Facebook’s community features, recommendations from your potential customers’ closest friends will appear first . This makes the social proof that much more effective and personal for your potential customers.

It’s also easier to report recommendations you feel are fraudulent or harassment. This can be useful if you become the victim of targeted harassment or receive a negative recommendation from a “customer” you’ve never even worked with. Facebook will need to review the claim, but it allows you to get your foot in the door on these issues at the very least.

We should also mention the new forms of content customers can add with Recommendations. Images can provide a preview potential customers can use to get a peek into what your business your business is like, without actually visiting it. They help solidify positive testimonials.

Tags are useful for two reasons. The first is the way they provide a quick summary of your business. Potential customers no longer need to read entire testimonials or dig through your Facebook page to learn whether or not you’re child friendly or serve classic cocktails.

Furthermore, tags can help customers write recommendations in an efficient manner. This is especially true for customers who hesitate to leave reviews when they aren’t sure how to put their experience into words.

The Cons of Facebook Recommendations

Most of the reception around Facebook Recommendations has been positive. However, some businesses and marketers have cited a couple of concerns. First, they’re worried that the high level of accessibility Recommendations provides may lead to a larger number of fraudulent testimonials despite how easy Facebook makes reporting them.

Second, some marketers are worried certain customers may forego leaving recommendations altogether. They’re specifically talking about customers who leave 2-4 star reviews. Because the “yes/no” aspect of Recommendations forces you to choose between two binary options, some marketers are worried this particular group of consumers may feel limited when it comes to writing reviews.

Why are Things Changing?

Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 and grew to become the most widely used social network by the time the 2000’s came to a close. This was around the time the platform started adding more features for businesses.

Six or seven years later, the platform now has several controversies and lawsuits under its belt, most of which relate to Facebook’s tendency to favor businesses and investors over the security and privacy of their users.

The biggest example is the data breach that allowed political data firm Cambridge Analytica to access over 50 million Facebook accounts on behalf of President Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign.

The most recent controversy occurred in late 2018 when Facebook was found guilty of sharing private user data with major tech companies.

Zuckerberg’s Promise to Rebuild Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg published a Facebook post on January 11, 2018. In the post, he vowed to make Facebook more like the platform it used to be. That is, a social network that people use to connect with friends and family.

Here’s a specific excerpt from this post that explains the changes you’re seeing and will see in regards to Facebook’s business features.

We’re making a major change to how we build Facebook. I’m changing the goal I give our product teams from focusing on helping you find relevant content to helping you have more meaningful social interactions. We started making changes in this direction last year, but it will take months for this new focus to make its way through all our products. The first changes you’ll see will be in News Feed, where you can expect to see more from your friends, family and groups. As we roll this out, you’ll see less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media. And the public content you see more will be held to the same standard — it should encourage meaningful interactions between people.”

Businesses and publishers started seeing changes in 2018, and there will likely be more to come as Facebook tests and implements new strategies that favor social interactions over content from businesses.

Facebook Recommendations are simply part of those changes.

A Word from Our Founder

I think the change from Reviews to Recommendations is great in principle. The things they’re trying to accomplish in making reviews more effective and useful are admirable. I still don’t trust Facebook and only recommend using it as a supplement to a great website where you own your own content.  I also don’t like the fact that they’re taking a 5-star system down to just a binary positive or negative choice. I think there’s often more nuance to a rating. But I get it: either you would recommend it or you wouldn’t. You might be thinking “but doesn’t Starfish Reviews use that same positive/negative binary system?” Yes, it does. However, we’re not running a review platform taking the final review. Our WordPress plugin is just trying to gauge the user’s feelings toward a business, product, or service, before they go to the actual review platform to leave a review. So we’re trying to make it super simple while leaving the graduated-rating to the review platform. Put simply: I think it’s really effective how we use it, but it’s definitely debatable how Facebook is using it. The great thing is that Starfish Reviews still works awesome with Facebook Recommendations, and you don’t have to change anything from how you were using it with Facebook Reviews before. Tevya Washburn (creator of Starfish Reviews)

Lyn Wildwood

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Can Social Proof Really Improve Customer Conversion Rates?

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How to write a review or recommendation on any Facebook business page

• You can write a review on Facebook to help others make an informed decision about a business.
• To leave a review on Facebook, you can either recommend or not recommend a business. 
• You can leave this recommendation directly on a Facebook business page.

If you've just been to a really great — or not so great — business, you probably want to tell someone about it. You could just post about it on social media, but that only goes to your friends. It would probably be more useful to let people who actually want the information know.

There are many ways to do that, but one way is to post on a business' Facebook page, if it has one. You don't have to leave a generic post on the page, and it's not the traditional star rating like you're used to either.

Facebook has changed their reviews to recommendations, which can include photos and tags in addition to text. Now, star ratings for a business are calculated by a combination of past reviews and customer recommendations. 

Here's everything you need to know about Facebook recommendations.

How are Facebook recommendations different from reviews?

While they serve a similar purpose, there are a few key differences between recommendations and reviews. 

First, Facebook reviews are visible to anyone on Facebook, while recommendations can be limited to just friends. Facebook reviews also have a star rating whilst recommendations do not.

What are the benefits of using Facebook recommendations?

When recommending a business, you can add photos to accompany your text and select tags to highlight key features about a business (like child-friendly or cozy atmosphere). 

Additionally, if one of your Facebook friends recommends a business, it will appear first on that Facebook page as well as on your friend's timeline.

How to write a review on Facebook

1. Go to the Facebook page of the business you want to review. 

2. Click the Reviews tab.

3. Underneath Do you recommend [Business Name]? click Yes or No .

4. Write your review about the business. Reviews must be at least 25 characters long.

5. In the Sharing section , select who will be able to see your review. You can choose just friends, or set it to public so that anyone can see it. When you're finished, click Post . 

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Everything You Need to Know About Facebook Reviews

Facebook reviews — officially called Facebook Recommendations — on local business Pages can help you build your company’s online reputation, expand your search visibility, and attract more customers to your business locations.

According to research:

• Facebook holds 19% of all customer reviews . The social media platform also ranks fourth just behind Google, Yelp, and Tripadvisor on the list of review sites people check before visiting a business. ( Online Reviews Statistics )
• 18.3% of U.S. adults made a purchase through Facebook in the last year. ( eMarketer )
• 2 out of 3 Facebook users visit a local business Page at least once a week. ( Hootsuite )
• 55% consider the social network as the most common place to learn about new brands and products. Meanwhile, 66% are likely to share their thoughts, experiences, and opinions on their purchases on Facebook. ( Facebook Reputation Management guide)

One thing to note: If you haven’t done so already, we suggest taking the time to learn how to claim a Facebook business page . 

Doing so ensures that you have an official place on Facebook where people can leave online reviews . For brands with multiple locations, we suggest you also check out our guide on how to manage multiple Facebook Pages with Facebook Business Manager .

What are Facebook Reviews / Recommendations?

For years, Facebook business Pages featured traditional online reviews and ratings. This changed in 2018, when the social network rolled out a series of visual changes and features that included “Facebook Recommendations.”

With the update, Facebook followed the trends set by Netflix and YouTube by ditching the 5-star rating system in favor of Yes/No options. Now, a query field appears on a business Page’s “Recommendations and Reviews” section with the question: “Do you recommend (business name)?”

Users can answer by pressing the “Yes” or “No” button and can add further context to their recommendations with tags, photos, and more text.

As a local business Page owner, you will no longer see any star-based reviews coming into your Page. Customers will rate your business simply by choosing whether or not they recommend it. 

How Do I See Facebook Reviews and Recommendations?

If you’re wondering how to see reviews on your Facebook business Page, simply go to your Page and click the Recommendations or Reviews tab found under your profile picture. (If you’re using Facebook Business Manager , you can follow the same procedures for Pages to which you have access.) 

If you previously enabled online reviews on your Page, Recommendations have been automatically turned on. To make it easier to find specific Recommendations, you can apply a “most helpful” or “most recent” filter to sort all your Recommendations and ratings.

Are Facebook Recommendations Public? 

All Facebook reviews and Recommendations are publicly displayed on your Page’s Reviews or Recommendations tab. They cannot be set to private.

What Happened to My Ratings?

If your business managed to compile a fair amount of Facebook reviews with high rating scores before Recommendations were rolled out, don’t worry: your ratings did not go away. 

They are still taken into account for your overall rating, which is also still displayed on your Page. As for how Facebook calculates this, it’s a mixture of reviews based on the past 5-star rating system and the current Yes / No Recommendations. 

How to Set Up Facebook Reviews

By default, Facebook reviews are activated when you create a Page. If, for some reason, it isn’t available when the Page is created, you can turn it on manually via the Manage Page section on the left side of the screen. To turn on Facebook reviews:

• Go to your brand page.
• Click on the “Settings” button on the Manage Page section.
• A new window should appear. Click on the “Templates and Tabs” section.
• Toggle the “Reviews” option to ON.

To make it easier for people to leave unsolicited feedback , you should make sure that people see the Reviews section on your page. You can change the order of the sections in this area through the “Templates and Tabs” section in the Page’s settings. Drag the dotted icon next to the section name to change the order.

How Do I Respond to Facebook Reviews?

Facebook reviews and Recommendations appear like traditional posts in the Reviews section. This means you can respond to any review on a Page by commenting on it. You can also “like” or “love” a Recommendation.

Before you do so, make sure you’re responding using your brand’s Facebook account and not your personal profile.

Before typing a response, it’s important to learn how to respond to negative reviews as well as positive feedback. 

According to research, 44.6% of consumers are more likely to visit a business if it responds to negative reviews. But don’t wait too long before typing out a response: 53.3% expect a response from a company within seven days.

The way your brand handles criticism or praise goes a long way towards brand success. Choosing the right words and taking feedback to heart can put your brand above the competition.

Can I Delete Facebook Reviews?

Currently, you can’t delete individual Facebook reviews and Recommendations from your page. If you don’t want reviews, the only option is to disable the entire feature. To do so:

• Go to the “Settings” section of the Manage Pages tab.
• Click on the “Templates and Tabs” button.
• Next to the “Reviews” section, toggle the switch from On to Off.

Turning this off might not be the best idea because it removes all reviews, including the positive reviews your brand might have accumulated throughout the years. In many ways, a page with reviews is better off than one without any reviews at all. That feedback serves as valuable social proof for consumers, and they’ll be quick to dismiss a brand if it doesn’t contain any consumer feedback.

If you believe a Facebook review contains spammy content or doesn’t meet the terms of use and content guidelines, you can send a report to Facebook .

What Companies Should Know About Facebook Recommendations

Recommendations and reviews are geared towards making your brand more discoverable and trustworthy on Facebook. 

According to the social network, having great Recommendations “may make your Page easier to find in Facebook search” — similar to how Google reviews can impact your local SEO performance. 

Recommendations are also useful for understanding the customer experience. The updated interface encourages your customers to provide richer, more detailed feedback about their experiences.

After users make the choice of recommending your business or not, they will be asked to provide additional details using tags, text, and photos. Selecting a tag will allow common themes to emerge, making it easier for potential customers to see your business’s highlights.

How To Get Facebook Reviews

Asking for reviews for your Facebook Page doesn’t have to be difficult (or awkward). 

If you have your customers’ contact information, you can send personalized SMS messages or emails asking for their feedback. (Make sure you get their permission to send messages to them before doing so). 

For those physically visiting your locations, you can give them physical reminders like cards or use stickers and posters in high-traffic areas to make customers aware of your Facebook page.

Based on our own research, the best time to start asking for reviews is around 2-3 p.m. or 6-7 p.m. 

Regardless of when you ask for feedback, the important thing is to keep it short, sweet, and uncomplicated. Quickly tell people why you want their feedback and provide a short link that doesn’t require people to jump through multiple hoops before they can leave a Facebook review. 

The Importance of Facebook Reviews

Facebook reviews, along with reviews on other business review sites , are important marketing assets for any brand. 92.4% of consumers use these reviews to guide their purchasing decisions. People need social proof to know if a product or service is worth the time, and more importantly, the investment.

On a popular site such as Facebook, reviews carry plenty of weight, and you need to use it to your advantage to improve the experience, attract more customers, and beat the competition.

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Making Sense of Facebook Recommendations: How They Work and Why They Matter

Scott Baradell

Google, Yelp and Facebook form a triumvirate of influence when it comes to online reviews, particularly for local businesses. Think of them as the Big Three.

Google, as we know, includes companies' star ratings in millions of branded searches and map listings every day. Yelp, the pioneer of local reviews, has published more than 200 million reviews and currently has a market cap of more than $3 billion.

Facebook, of course, is the most popular social media platform of all time. Facebook claims that fully one-third of its 3 billion users look to Facebook reviews to evaluate local businesses. It made some news recently when Bing switched from sharing Yelp reviews to Facebook reviews in its local listings.

But Facebook reviews -- which officially became Facebook Recommendations in 2018 -- are different from reviews on Google, Yelp or other review sites in three important ways:

• Having a Reviews tab is optional, so if you don't want people to leave reviews of your business on your page, you can simply reflect that in your page settings. Many companies with poor reviews choose this option to make those reviews disappear. Most review sites don't offer this option. Facebook does warn companies that choose not to accept reviews that it may reduce their business's visibility in search.
• Facebook reviews are more likely to lead to discussion and dialogue with other customers than reviews on other sites. Facebook, after all, is built for conversation. If you have a lot of happy customers, this can lead to an online lovefest and bandwagon effect . If you have a lot of unhappy customers, they can amplify one another's complaints and even organize against you .
• The main difference involves star ratings. While all review sites calculate star ratings differently , with some using fairly complex algorithms, no one does it quite like Facebook. You see, since 2018, individuals have not been allowed to leave a star rating for businesses. Facebook simply asks whether you would like to recommend or not recommend the business; then, you can write a post describing your experience. After you publish the post, Facebook assigns a star rating to your review that it factors into an overall star rating for the business -- although no star rating is displayed with your individual review.

Let's take a closer look at this third difference. Why does Facebook create its own star ratings for businesses based on user reviews, rather than let users leave their own star ratings? And how does it calculate a business's star rating based on these reviews?

In my research, I've found the answers to be disappointing.

Facebook scrapped user-generated star ratings when it introduced Facebook Recommendations in 2018. The reason Facebook stated for this decision at the time was that it wanted to encourage more detailed reviews (a minimum of 25 characters, anyway), and more discussion and engagement. Too many users were just dropping in star ratings without providing any explanation or context.

Of course, Facebook could have required users to leave a 25-character-plus review in order to leave a star rating -- but hey, who am I to question Facebook on UX?

Facebook doesn't explain how it determines a business's overall star rating based on reviews, beyond a cryptic message that pops up next to each page's star rating:  "This rating is based on how many people recommend or don't recommend the Page, as well as any past ratings and reviews it may have."

From what I can tell based on a little experimentation, Facebook's formula can be explained more simply:

• When you recommend a business, Facebook assigns your review five stars.
• When you don't recommend a business, Facebook assigns your review one star.

For example, I looked up Dallas-area plumbers and found Public Service Plumbers. They had five reviews with a 3.4 star average. 

I added a review recommending the service. The star rating immediately rose to 3.7.

Then I deleted that review and added one not recommending the service. The star rating fell to 3.0.

Taking a simple average across the six reviews in each case, it was evident that my first review had been assigned five stars and my second one star.

Seems like a pretty blunt instrument, doesn't it? Honestly, considering it claims nearly a billion people turn to its reviews to evaluate local businesses, I think Facebook could do better.

Nonetheless, you're wise to take Facebook reviews seriously -- and that advice isn't just for local or even B2C businesses. Facebook star ratings appear prominently on Facebook, Google and Bing for organizations of all sizes and types -- national, global and B2B companies included.

People Trust What Other People Say About You More Than What You Say About Yourself.

Leave a comment.

Scott is founder and CEO of Idea Grove, one of the most forward-looking public relations agencies in the United States. Idea Grove focuses on helping technology companies reach media and buyers, with clients ranging from venture-backed startups to Fortune 100 companies.

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