Facebook Reviews: Importance, Benefits, Tips

Introduction 

With a monthly active user base of 9.21 billion, Facebook remains one of the top social media platforms across the globe. This platform is not just for individuals to connect but is also for businesses to gain new customers and build their online presence. There is no doubt in the fact that social media plays a vital role in the growth of businesses, considering the growing digital landscape. In such a case, it becomes imperative for businesses to make use of a booming social media platform such as Facebook to give their online presence that ‘extra edge’. If you are a budding business owner, then Facebook reviews can prove to be a great way for you to grow your online presence. In this article, we are going to shed light on everything that you need to know about Facebook reviews. 

About Facebook reviews 

If you want to grow your business, then merely providing excellent customer service isn’t enough. You need to make sure that you translate the same in the form of reviews from your customers. The reach and influence of Facebook have made it a powerful marketing tool driving growth for small and large businesses. According to a study by Forbes, nearly 49 percent people check Facebook reviews of local businesses before making a purchase decision. So, in a nutshell, Facebook continues to influence customers and businesses with its popularity. Facebook reviews continue to be the third most popular review platform, after Google reviews and Yelp reviews. 

Facebook is no longer just a platform to ‘connect people’. Since the inception of the platform almost 2 decades ago, it has seen a lot of updates and changes. Through these constant changes, Facebook has been able to make the platform much more accessible to business owners. For businesses, it makes communication with their customers very easy. How so?

Unlike other review platforms, where a reviewer would have to create a profile especially to  leave the review, this step is completely eliminated because most people already have their personal accounts on Facebook. This makes it easier for businesses to ask for reviews and for the customers to respond to them. Buy why is there so much hype for Facebook reviews? Why are they important?

Importance of Facebook reviews 

In the present digital world, almost everyone uses Facebook. If you aren’t present and active on this social media platform, then you are losing growth prospects and money, big time. 

Irrespective of the demography you’re targeting, a large part of your target audience is on Facebook, busy sharing recommendations and analyzing reviews left by people for other businesses. 

Leaving reviews on Facebook takes minimal effort because people can leave reviews with their own Facebook accounts that they already have. This is in sharp contrast to other review sites such as Google and Yelp, wherein you have to create separate accounts to leave a review. 

Having a Facebook page for your business increases your chances of having better search engine visibility, solely because of the credibility of the platform. 

Facebook reviews are not just important for the people who use the platform, but they are also eyed by non-facebook users. Whenever you do a Google search for a business, the right side of the page gives you every bit of information that you need. The GMB profile in that box gives an overview of the business, along with the operational hours, photographs, and Google reviews. What it also reflects is the facebook reviews, that everyone can see, whether they use Facebook or not. So a higher star rating on Facebook can also attract people who do not use Facebook. 

How to get more Facebook reviews 

If you are a business that is new to Facebook, then you need to pull your socks up and get on top of your review management game. To get more Facebook reviews for your business, here are some tips that can help you out: 

1. Ask your immediate family and friends: The first set of people that you should reach out to is the people who know you, and have availed services from you. Those people can be a part of your immediate family, extended family, or friend circle. Ask them to leave an honest review, and utilize both star rating and review description to highlight your business. As your family and friends leave the initial reviews for your business, your page will gain some momentum, and you will be able to move on to the next set of people to ask for more Facebook reviews. 
2. Reach out to your acquaintances: After you’ve materialized your review efforts to garner reviews from your immediate connections, think of people who know you and have visited your business in the past. Send them a review invite online and ask them to review your business. 
3. Ask your followers: There must have been people who follow you on Facebook. Why do they follow you? It must have been because you provide good customer service, you offer affordable services, or simply maybe because they find your business unique.  Reach out to those followers and request them to leave a review. 
4. Contact your Facebook friends: No matter the number of followers you have on Facebook, you also need to reach out to your friends on Facebook to ask for reviews. Remember, the more Facebook reviews you have, the better it is. Remember, anyone who has visited your business in one form or another can write a review about you. So make sure you reach out to as many people as possible. 
5. Ask your previous customers: It is your customers who know whether your product or service is meeting expectations. So, why not ask them how they find your business? When customers leave Facebook reviews, they will point out specific aspects of your business that they liked, or would want you to improve on. 
6. Reach out to your existing customers: When you offer services to your current customers, it is easier to ask for reviews from them as their experience with your business is still afresh. So do not miss out on that opportunity and utilize the feedback of every single customer. 
7. Call your vendors: Do you have any vendors that you deal with? Well, then dial them up, and ask for reviews on Facebook. Have a couple of review templates handy and customize those as per your requirements. With a software like Emitrr, you have access to a variety of review templates that you can customize and send across to multiple people at once. 
8. Automate your invites: Once you have a lot of incoming customers, it will be difficult to keep track of all those customers and ask for reviews individually. You will need to automate your invites for Facebook reviews. Use Emitrr to send automated review requests to multiple people in a single go, as soon as they avail service. 

Enabling a reviews tab on your Facebook page 

Have you received an invitation for enabling the Facebook reviews tab? If not, then follow these steps:

Step-1: Login to your Facebook account and navigate to the Facebook business page

Step-2: Click on ‘Settings’. You will be redirected to the settings page of Facebook. 

Step-3: On the settings page, click on ‘Templates and Tabs’. 

Step-4: Now click on the ‘reviews tab’ to enable it. 

Congratulations, you’ve successfully enabled review tabs on your Facebook page. This is what it will look like: 

Getting a Facebook review link

The next question that arises is ‘how to get a Facebook reviews link?’. There are two options to do so. 

You can either copy the review URL by heading to the reviews tab on your Facebook page or build a direct link of your own. Here’s how you can do that: 

1. Keep the login homepage URL as www.facebook.com/login/. 
2. Add ‘next’ to put a redirect to the reviews page
3. Convert the page URL into its HTML counterpart and add it after ‘next’. 

That’s it! You’re done. 

Getting notified of new Facebook reviews 

Since you are making efforts to utilize every user’s feedback, you also need to make sure that you do not miss out on any action that is happening on your Facebook page. To be notified of the Facebook reviews, you need to activate the notifications option. Here is how you can do the same: 

1. Head to the settings section of your Facebook page
2. Go to the notifications tab 
3. You’ll be redirected to three options, click on the first one ‘Get a notification each time there is activity on your Page’
4. Click on new reviews, and your notifications will be turned on 

Promoting Facebook reviews 

Now that you have garnered a basic understanding of how Facebook reviews work wonders for you and have some tips to gain more Facebook reviews up your sleeve, it is not time to learn some tactics to promote those reviews. 

Here are some tips: 

1. On your website, have a ‘review us’ button, that will redirect the users to your Facebook page where they can leave reviews. 
2. Create Facebook ads by utilizing the Facebook reviews on social media platforms.
3. Ask your customers to review your business and then feature their reviews on your Facebook page. 
4. Run a contest wherein you ask your customers to leave reviews for your business and offer them a discount or a coupon code. 

Reporting Facebook reviews 

Review management is certainly not a joyful ride. It comes with its set of challenges. While some reviews can give you much-needed confidence, others can amp up your blood pressure. These reviews are mostly negative in nature, and can also be spam, especially if there is no comment mentioned, just a star rating.  In such a case, you can report the review, and then Facebook will take it up and see if it meets the Facebook community standards. Remember that you can only report a review that has a comment attached to it. So, make sure that you reply to the review and then flag it. Responding to reviews, whether positive or negative is always a good practice, as not only does it establish the credibility of your business but also contributes to the purchase decisions of your potential customers. 

But how is it that you report Facebook reviews if you cannot delete them? Well, here are some steps that you can follow to report fake Facebook reviews: 

Reporting Facebook reviews from your desktop:

• Navigate to the review that you wish to flag. 
• Click on the three dots on the right side of the review.
• You will be presented with three options: ‘Save Link’, ‘Turn on post notifications’, and ‘Find support or report recommendation’. Click on the third option. 
• A pop-up will appear on your screen. Click on ‘Submit’. 

You also have the option to ban the reviewer from viewing, liking, or commenting on any of your posts. 

Reporting Facebook reviews from your mobile device: 

• Head to the negative review
• Click on the three dots on the ride side of the review’s name
• Click on Find support or report Recommendation
• You’ll be redirected to a page wherein you will have to choose a reason for reporting the recommendation 
• Pick your reason and hit ‘submit’

Buying Facebook reviews 

Buying Facebook reviews is an unfair practice that can put your online reputation in grave danger. When you post a review that has not been written by your customers, that particular review is practically misleading your potential customers. It is of no use to them, and it can harm your brand. For local businesses, word of mouth means everything. Posting a fake review from your end, incentivizing people who have not visited your business to write reviews for you, or gating reviews are some practices that you should not indulge in. Implement the right ways to grow and promote your reviews and the growth you witness thereafter will be way better than you had imagined.

Cool hacks to generate 3X more Facebook reviews 

Wondering how to get people to leave reviews on Facebook? Here are some cool tricks that you can use: 

Add a CTA button to your website 

By adding a CTA button to your website, you will give your users the opportunity and the ease with which they can easily leave a review. Your CTA can be anything, but we recommend that it says “Review us on Facebook” and is linked to your Facebook business page. When the users click on that CTA, they will be redirected to your Facebook business page where they can leave reviews. 

Use your email list 

Do you have a list of subscribers or loyal customers who are your backbone? Well, it is time to leverage that list and send out mailers that also urge them to leave reviews for your business on Facebook. So whenever you send emails to your subscribers about any new updates with respect to any new updates or feature addons, make sure that towards the end you have a text body along the lines “How was your experience? We’d love if you could leave us a review on Facebook”. Though it might not look very promising from the looks of it, but tapping your email list can prove to be a very useful tactic that can land you reviews for sure. 

Write a Facebook post about leaving reviews on Facebook

If you have recently added the Facebook reviews feature on your website, how will people know about it? In that case, you need to educate your audiences telling them that they can now leave reviews on Facebook as well. Create a Facebook post informing people about the same and when you start gaining reviews on Facebook, make sure to highlight those on your website as well. 

Leverage the power of automation

Asking for reviews from every single customer can be a painful exercise, especially when you have a lot of incoming customers. How will you keep track of customers who have reviewed your business and the ones that have not? The answer is automation. A software like Emitrr can help you generate more Facebook reviews. The auto-texting capability of Emitrr sends automated review requests to customers after they avail a service. You can set up a time frame for Emitrr to leave review requests to customers on your behalf, and even choose the channel to send those requests (email, text, or both). Not only that, but you can also view the review responses in one conversation inbox, and respond to the Facebook reviews from one single dashboard. Later on, you can even track metrics and see whether you’re meeting your reputation goals. 

Respond 

So if you want to build lasting relationships with your customers and your audiences at large, then make sure to respond to every single review, whether it is positive or negative. If people leave comments on your posts, respond to those. And if they appreciate your business, respond. If they highlight gaps in your services, respond. Just don’t leave any comment or review unattended, because doing so will not pose you in a good light. Be proactive while responding and show people that you care. Your potential customers, who will be checking your reviews will definitely take your attitude into account, and who knows, you might land a couple of customers! 

FAQs

Conclusion 

Facebook reviews are an excellent way to attract new customers, engage with your existing customers, and establish a good name for your business. So, are you a budding business owner, wanting to create a presence on Facebook? Well, make the most of your review management strategies and garner maximum benefit from your Facebook reviews.