The ultimate guide to Facebook Reviews, aka “Facebook Recommendations

Facebook (now Meta) isn’t just the biggest social media platform in the world. It’s also a place where customers can discover new businesses through online reviews. Facebook reviews, which are now officially known as Facebook recommendations, help to provide social proof to your customers and help your business get discovered. 

As experts in both social media management and reviews, Birdeye is here to help. Let’s talk about how your business can start collecting more Facebook reviews and grow revenue.

What you need to know about Facebook reviews

Here’s what every business owner needs to know about Facebook reviews. After this quick video, we’ll discuss why they matter, the name change from “Facebook reviews” to “Facebook reccomendations”, the SEO implications, and how they affect online visibility.

Why Facebook reviews are important

Facebook is one of the biggest social media platforms on the Internet. It’s estimated that Facebook has more than 2.6 billion monthly active users. This presents a great opportunity for customers and prospects to engage with your business on the platform. They can like, share and comment on posts. 

Customers can even use Facebook Messenger to communicate directly with the business. They can also leave a review (recommendation) showing their satisfaction.

Reviews posted on Facebook are meant to represent the genuine experiences of real customers. As a result, potential customers value the social proof they provide. Studies show that 92% of customers consult reviews before making any purchase decision. Facebook is the second-largest review site on the Internet, right behind Google reviews.

Facebook reviews are now Facebook recommendations

Facebook’s review system is unique since it’s one of the few review sites on the Internet that doesn’t use the overall star rating system.

While Facebook had used the overall star rating for many years, in 2018, the social media giant decided to switch to a binary system. Instead of recommending your business out of 5 stars, customers now have just two options to rate your business: Recommend or Don’t Recommend.

All of your old reviews are factored in as part of your Recommendation Score. This score takes into account your old reviews posted under the overall review rating as well as the ratio of customers who would recommend your business.

Facebook reviews and online visibility

In its early days, Facebook had a proprietary algorithm called EdgeRank which determined what content showed up on users’ News Feed. The algorithm was based on three factors:

• Affinity – Affinity measures how much the user has interacted with your page in the past. The more they interact with the page, the more likely it is that you’ll show up in their News Feeds.
• Weight – Weight measures the importance of each different interaction. Facebook sees some interactions as more important than others. For example, a review with a photo or a video is a more important interaction than a plain-text review.
• Time Decay – This factor measures how long ago the customer’s interaction with your business took place. The more time passes, the less importance EdgeRank gives to the interaction.

Facebook’s proprietary algorithm has gotten more and more complicated over the years. However, these three factors of affinity, weight, and time decay still hold great importance in determining what shows up in users’ News Feeds.

Which factors do my reviews affect?

Facebook reviews affect two of these three factors: affinity and weight. That means the more reviews your business gets, the greater the likelihood of potential customers discovering your Facebook profile. These same factors still also apply to Facebook recommendations but are applied to the binary of “recommend” or “do not recommend”.

In addition to giving your business more visibility, having more Facebook recommendations and reviews encourages other customers to rate your business. Facebook recommendations also build brand transparency by showing the opinions of real people rather than plain old marketing statements. Specifically, they feel more genuine because they are from real people.

Facebook reviews and SEO

There are other benefits to collecting recommendations on Facebook. That’s because facebook reviews don’t just help your business get discovered on Facebook. The more Facebook recommendations you have, the more visible your business is on search engines. Since reviews highlight the authentic opinion of local customers, Google values them highly when determining search ranking. According to Moz, reviews are the third-largest factor determining local search ranking.

As you may have guessed from the topic of this blog, it’s not just Google reviews that matter when it comes to SEO. Collecting reviews on any and all sites will help your business rank higher in relevant search results. 

Facebook is no exception. 

Since Facebook is an authoritative site, Google values reviews posted on the platform.

How to manage your Facebook reviews

Here’s how your business can get started collecting and managing Facebook reviews.

How to enable reviews on your Facebook page

If you want your customers to have the ability to leave reviews on your Facebook page, there are just a few steps you need to take:

1. Go to your Facebook Business page
2. Navigate and click on the “Settings” tab
3. Find “Templates and Tabs”
4. Click “Enable reviews” 

With those simple steps, your customers can now leave a review on your business directly on your Facebook page.

How to leave Facebook reviews

Here’s how your customers can leave a review on Facebook for your business.

1. Sign in to Facebook.
2. Find the relevant business profile.
3. Click the “Reviews” tab on the left side of the screen.

4. Click “Yes” or “No” on the question asking whether you recommend the business.

5. Write a description explaining why you recommend or don’t recommend the business. The minimum description you can write is 25 characters.

How to get notifications for new reviews

It’s easy to enable real-time notifications for new recommendations and reviews posted on your Facebook business page. This way, you can respond to all recommendations, solve problems instantly, and thank happy customers.

Responding to your Facebook reviews is important, but in order to do that, you need to know when you get a new review. Here’s how to set up notifications for your reviews:

1. Find the settings section of your Facebook Page
2. Find and click on “Notifications”
3. Select the option “Get a notification each time there is activity on your page”
4. You’ll see that the “New Reviews” notification will be turned on.

Now you’ll get an automatic notification any time you get a new review on your page, so you can respond to it accordingly as quickly as possible.

Pro tip: You can also select whether or not you want an email sent for each new review in addition to the Facebook notification. Even better, review management services like Birdeye automatically send SMS or email notifications to relevant employees whenever new recommendations are posted about your business.

How to ask for recommendations on Facebook

Want to collect more recommendations on Facebook? Here’s how you can get started.

• Make the Process Simple and Easy
  The harder the process of leaving a review is for the customer, the less likely they are to actually do it. A happy customer might say they’re willing to leave a review in person but might forget to do it as soon as they leave your store. 
  
  After all, who has time to go and find your business’s Facebook page? Luckily, there’s a way to make the process quick and easy for the customer. Just send review requests emails and texts that link directly to your Facebook business page. All the customer has to do is click the link and leave a review.

• Timing is everything
  To get the best results, send review requests regularly. We’ve found that businesses get the best results when they send review requests on the same day as a customer’s interaction with them.
  
  If a customer receives a review request a month after the transaction, they may no longer have a clear memory of the sale. In this case, chances are that even your most satisfied customers may not write a review for your business.

• Ask all of your customers for reviews
  Some businesses are tempted to ask only a certain group of customers for reviews, who they know will probably leave a positive review. 
  
  Being selective with review requests only hurts your business.
  
  You’re missing out on sending review requests to customers who probably would’ve recommended your business. You’re also missing the opportunity to get honest feedback that can help you improve your business.

How to promote your reviews

Positive Facebook reviews show that customers trust your business and are willing to recommend your services publicly. You can leverage these reviews outside of Facebook as well, by promoting them on other marketing channels like: 

• Website
• Offline store displays

Facebook reviews on website

One of the best ways to get more reviews is to embed review requests on your website and display them for your customers to see. You can add text that encourages your customers to click the link, which will bring them directly to your Facebook page, where they can leave a review.

Facebook reviews on offline store displays

You can also promote your reviews offline if your store has a physical location. An easy way to do this is to have a sign at the front of your store asking your customers to visit your Facebook page. You can even include a QR code that customers can scan that will bring them directly to your Facebook page.

How to create and use the Facebook review link

What is a Facebook review link?

A Facebook review link is a URL that you can create to make it easier for your customers to leave reviews directly on your Facebook page. You can attach the unique URL on your website that will direct them to your Facebook page where they can leave a review about your business, product, or service.

In order to send Facebook review requests, it’s important to send a link directly to the review section of your profile. Here’s how you can get started.

How to create and use the Facebook review link

What is a Facebook review link?

A Facebook review link is a URL that you can create to make it easier for your customers to leave reviews directly on your Facebook page. You can attach the unique URL on your website that will direct them to your Facebook page where they can leave a review about your business, product, or service.

In order to send Facebook review requests, it’s important to send a link directly to the review section of your profile. Here’s how you can get started.

How to create a Facebook review link

If you want to create a Facebook review link to drive your customers to your Facebook page, there are a few workarounds that you need to get past. The primary issue is that the customer will be directed to a login page on Facebook if they’re not logged in already. Here’s how you can bypass that problem and build a working Facebook review link:

1. To start, just use the Facebook login page URL: https://www.facebook.com/login/
2. If your customer just goes to this link and logs in, they’ll be directed to their Facebook feed instead of the page you want to direct them to. So, you’ll add a “next” command to the login URL like this: https://www.facebook.com/login/?next=

3. From here, you need to add your business page’s URL, but it’s not as simple as copying the URL and plugging it in. In order for this to work, you’ll need to convert it to HTML code.

So, let’s say your company is called “XYZ Company.”

Your URL will look like this:
https://www.facebook.com/login/?next=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FXYZcompany%2Freviews%2F

If you want to easily create your own Facebook review link from this blog, just take the text for “XYZ company” in the URL and replace it with your own company name in your Facebook page URL. Once you plug that in, your customers should be directed to your Facebook page to leave reviews quickly and easily.

How to use the Facebook review link

There are a couple of different ways that you can use a Facebook review link to direct your customers to your page:

• The easiest way is to share it with your customers directly. You can do this easily via email, text, social media, or other marketing outreach.
  
• The next way to use your Facebook review link is to embed it on your website. By including the link on high traffic pages, you can direct your customers to leave a review on your Facebook with a single click.

Track Facebook reviews

To make sure that you get notifications for every new Facebook review, make sure that you follow the following steps.

1. Navigate to the ‘Settings’ section of your Facebook page.

1. Click the ‘Notifications’ tab.
2. Select the option ‘Get a notification each time there is activity on your Page.

4. Now, the ‘New Reviews’ notifications option will be turned on.

Once you do this, you’ll be able to stay on top of all the reviews that get posted to your Facebook business page.

How to turn off Facebook reviews

You can disable recommendations and reviews from your Facebook business page, but we recommend keeping it turned on and just managing recommendations consistently.

It’s hard to have a great online reputation without reviews on a major site like Facebook. If you’re worried about bad reviews, remember that great responses can even make negative reviews reflect positively on your brand.

But there are other factors to consider. If you turn off customer reviews on your Facebook business page, visitors will not be able to see any positive or negative reviews that others may have left.

If you still want to do this, here’s how you can turn off all customer reviews:

1. Click on Settings at the top of your Facebook Business page.

2. From the menu on the left, select ‘Templates and Tabs’.

3. Click on ‘Settings’ next to Reviews.

4. You’ll see a slider labeled “Show Reviews”. Turn this from “On” to “Off”.

5. Save your changes.

Even though you can turn off reviews on your Facebook business page, we do not recommend it. 

If you are worried about getting negative reviews, consider actively soliciting reviews from all your customers. Most of the time, only customers who feel that they’ve had strong negative experiences are motivated to leave reviews. Soliciting reviews is an easy way to balance the scales.

How to delete Facebook reviews

There is no way for a business owner to remove Facebook reviews posted on their business page without turning off reviews entirely. The only people who can delete these reviews are Facebook moderators or the reviewer who wrote them.

While you can report Facebook reviews (more on that in the next section), there’s no guarantee that Facebook will actually remove the review. That’s why we recommend responding to the review (more on that later).

How to report a review on Facebook

Here’s how you can report a review that you think is fake:

1.Find the review that you want to report.

2. Click the three icons on the top right of the review.

3. Find the dropdown item that’s labeled “Find Support or Report Review

4. Pick your reason for reporting the review.

5. Click the “Next” button. You’ll see this screen. Click done to complete.

How to display Facebook reviews on your website

Once you have a good repertoire of reviews, you can use them as marketing material on your site. You can do this by embedding the reviews you want to display with a few easy steps.

1. Go to the reviews section of your Facebook page
2. Find the review you want to be displayed on your site
3. Find and click on the “embed” option
4. Copy the code that appears
5. Paste the code on the back end of the page you want 

After you do this, you should see the review you picked displayed for your customers to see. This is a great way to show that you are receiving positive reviews and are a trustworthy business.

Benefits of responding to recommendations and reviews

Actively responding to recommendations on Facebook — and any other review site — is crucial to maintaining a strong business reputation. Prompt, thoughtful responses prove to customers that you value their feedback.

Plus, today, customers expect responses to their reviews. This is a great way to show that your business is willing to listen to the problems of each individual customer. A study by Harvard Business Review showed that when businesses respond to all their customer reviews, they typically see more reviews and a higher overall star rating.

Here’s how you can respond to a Facebook review.

1. Find the review that you want to respond to within the Reviews tab on your Facebook business page.
2. Comment on the review the same way that you would comment on one of your friend’s Facebook posts.

Tips for responding to positive reviews

Here’s how you can respond to positive Facebook reviews.

• Thank the customer for the feedback- A “thank you” can go a long way in showing your appreciation and building customer loyalty.
• Keep it short and sweet- Responding to a positive review should be short and sweet. There’s no reason to turn it into a long essay.
• Encourage the customer to come back- Leave a short note to show the customer you’d be happy to serve them again. This can be as simple as “We hope to see you soon!”

Tips for responding to negative reviews

Here’s how you can respond to negative Facebook reviews.

• Apologize for the bad experience- The first step is simply saying “Sorry”. Show the customer that you regret their negative experience.
• Be polite- A bad review can be frustrating, but avoid the urge to lash out. It’s important to be polite because other customers are looking at your review responses to see what kind of service they can expect from you.
• Ask the customer to contact you directly- Provide a phone number or an email so that the customer can contact you. That way, any potential back and forth will not be in public view. Plus, if you’re able to resolve the problem in a private setting, there’s a good chance the customer can be persuaded to edit or even delete their original review.

Tips for responding to fake reviews

If you see a review that you think didn’t come from a real customer, call it out. While you should remain polite, you should also let potential customers who read the review know that it isn’t an accurate representation of your customer experience.

Manage reviews using BirdAI and Birdeye Social

When potential customers view your business’s Facebook reviews and recommendations, they also notice whether your business has responded, especially to negative feedback. 

The previous section offered tips for responding to Facebook reviews, but we have a tool that can simplify this process for you – Birdeye Social. 

Birdeye Social enables businesses to leverage the functionality of generative AI to craft professional, error-free, and branded responses to all social media comments and reviews. 

With our AI-driven social media management tool, Birdeye Social, businesses can:

• Respond to all Facebook comments and customer posts including Facebook recommendations from a single dashboard.
• Use AI to quickly respond to all customer content and tweak it to present themselves in the best possible light online.
• Ensure that every response is in line with their brand guidelines, contributing to an enhanced online reputation. 

People also asked

Should I buy Facebook reviews?

No. No matter how badly you want to up your Facebook review count, you should never consider buying them. This practice can negatively impact your business’s reputation and could result in penalties from Facebook.

There are plenty of shady websites you can visit that allow you to buy Facebook reviews. Not only do these often pricy, but the end result is not worth it. Fake reviews are incredibly easy to spot often because they are so over-the-top positive. It’s not hard for a customer to pick out the disingenuous ones, which can really hurt your reputation with your customers.

Buying reviews on Facebook is also against Facebook’s guidelines and could land you in what is often called “Facebook Jail.” Your account could be suspended or even banned if they identify that you’ve bought reviews for your page.

Ultimately, the reputational risk is not worth it.

Why would a business page hide their reviews?

Businesses with hidden Facebook reviews are like stores with closed curtains – they create suspicion. Reviews, both positive and negative, build trust and transparency. Potential customers rely on them to make decisions. Hiding them discourages engagement and makes your business look unreliable. However, there are rare exceptions. If you’re undergoing a major overhaul and anticipate temporary service issues, disabling reviews can prevent a flood of negativity while you improve. 

Remember, this is a temporary solution, and re-enabling reviews is crucial to rebuild trust. Likewise, if you’re bombarded with spam or fake reviews, flagging them to Facebook and temporarily disabling new ones is an option. But focus on getting Facebook to remove the fraudulent ones and then reopen for customer feedback as quickly as possible.

Frequently asked questions about Facebook reviews

How to manage online reputation with Birdeye

Reviews are key to building a positive online reputation with your customers. But getting more reviews isn’t enough. If you really want to maintain a positive reputation, you need a system that can help you get more reviews, and manage the ones you get.

Birdeye is the most comprehensive reputation management software on the market. With Birdeye you can automatically send review requests, respond to customer reviews from 150+ sites in a single dashboard, get actionable insights with Natural Language Processing (NLP), and get a custom-built profile that will help your business get discovered by customers.

Birdeye’s innovative BirdAI solution provides enhanced artificial intelligence support to our customers every day, resulting in huge potential for real business impact.

“We are on our second year using Birdeye and we only had around 30 total reviews online and today we have over 600! The program works with our customer management software and automatically sends out review requests after each job so we do not even have to think about it.”

-Timothy Schachnuk, Midatlantic Water Services

With Birdeye, you can: 

• Schedule Facebook posts and coordinate across all social media platforms
• Manage and solicit reviews from one easy dashboard

Perform social media and reviews analytics to understand your entire customer lifecycle Simplify social media and review management with Birdeye.