Facebook can feel like a minefield for new businesses. When you know you’re great at what you do, how can you show some social proof to potential customers? Welcome Facebook reviews. But reviews don’t just appear overnight.
While landing on a social media page that is packed with likes and engagement is great, if you’re lacking in reviews, customers may feel uneasy on trusting your services.
Think about it. If a new technology brand popped up out of nowhere, how would you know if you could trust them? You’d more than likely ask a friend or family member: ‘Have you bought anything from X?’
Or, you’d go snoop around online to see what people are saying about them – good or bad – before investing your hard-earned cash. If everything you found signalled that they didn’t reply when there’s a problem, had slow delivery and charged your card twice, you’d be running for the hills. This is why reviews are so crucial, especially for new and small businesses.
Why are reviews important?
Reviews not only have the power to influence customer buying decisions (such as the example above), but they can also help to strengthen your credibility. When you think about it, the brands we buy into started somewhere and have proved their worth through branding and customer experience. There’s a reason why I live in a world of Apple technology… I love how they come across, their tech works and if I’ve ever had a problem, it’s sorted pretty quickly.
Naturally, as consumers, we’re more likely to make a purchase if others around us – even complete strangers – agree that it is a good decision.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re a B2B or B2C business, your customer needs to be able to trust you, or see that others do.
The importance of Facebook reviews
Gone are the days that users just use Facebook for chatting to their friends and family. Today, Facebook is considered a hub for customers to connect with brands, products and services. Many of us use Facebook daily to share an insight into our personal lives, share funny memes and follow our favourite celebrities. But as well as stalking the likes of Channing Tatum, we also look to Facebook to buy.
When you create a local business page with Facebook, users can leave ratings and reviews. Although, this feature has recently been updated to ‘Recommendations’ that pretty much work in the same manner.
Understandably, we all have to start somewhere when it comes to building a Facebook business page. Review don’t just appear – sadly. But it comes as no surprise that 82% of consumers say they read and trust local business reviews.
How to get more Facebook reviews: Step one, enabling
Facebook reviews can mean everything to your business, especially when you don’t have a website. Website or not, here’s how to get more Facebook reviews, and how to increase rating on Facebook pages.
Firstly, you need to check that your Facebook page allows reviews in the first place. Head to your Facebook page and click ‘Settings’. Then continue to ‘Templates and Tabs’ (If you already have configured these settings, skip the images below).
Once inside ‘Templates and tabs’, on the right hand side you should see a variety of options (as per below). From here, toggle on ‘Reviews’, allowing these to be shown on your Facebook page.
How to get more Facebook reviews
Now we’ve covered why reviews are important online, let’s see how to get more Facebook reviews on your Facebook page.
1. Create automated follow-up emails
If you’re looking for ways to get more Facebook reviews, all it takes is asking your customers. But sure, that sounds simple… But here’s how to ask for reviews on Facebook, effectively.
Once a customer has made a purchase or used your services, following up with a brief email can work wonders for building up your reviews. Of course, how you phrase your email depends on your business. But to get you started, we’ve come up with a quick template you can use, grab your FREE template below.
Grab our FREE template and get more Facebook reviews
2. Add a call to action (CTA) button on your website
If you’re looking to gain reviews through your website, you need to very clearly include a CTA. This can work well for reviews on your website, as well as on Facebook. There’s a good chance you already have social icons on your website already, but you can easily take this one step further!
A plugin such as Social Reviews and Recommendations works wonders to display Facebook reviews on your website in the form of a sidebar widget. When your site’s visitors see real-life reviews from previous customers, it can help to increase their confidence and trust regarding your brand. I believe the free version has some wonderful capabilities, but if you upgrade to the business plan, you can add a CTA button seeking reviews.
After you install and activate the plugin, you can connect it to your business Facebook page by going to:
Settings > Facebook Reviews from your WordPress admin dashboard.
3. Encourage Facebook ‘check-in’s
If you run a physical store, or have an office that your clients may visit, try to encourage customers to ‘check-in’ at your business. These check-ins are a form of geotag on Facebook, helping to boost your presence on the network. When a user checks in, it shares the post to their friends, helping to get your business out there. To ensure your business page is set up for check-ins, log into Facebook > visit your page > Edit page info. Under ‘Location’ you will be able to add the street address of your business, and tick whether users can view your business address and check in.
4. Respond to reviews, personally
When your customers feel valued, they’re far more likely to buy from you/visit you again. Responding to every review you receive will help to form a favourable impression of your business by playing an active role in your reviews. But what happens if you receive a slightly negative review? Respond! Politely, and respectfully.
When you choose to reply to your reviews (both good and bad), you build up your brand’s transparency and authenticity. While it may be tempting to quickly try delete a review, negative reviews can actually help.
If a bad review does occur, take the opportunity to execute your best customer service. When others see you handling the situation well, they’ll respect your business even more. If you’re getting a lot of bad reviews, it may be time to review your processes to find out what’s going wrong, however. When responding to a negative review, you could also potentially offer/ask for further contact information to discuss their experience, or offer a discount to help regain their trust.
To ensure you get a notification each time someone leaves a review, log into Facebook > visit your page > Settings > Notifications.
Ready to get more reviews on Facebook?
If you’re struggling to get reviews or set up the right automation to gather more knowledge on your audience, we’d love to help. Since reviews can make such an impact to your business and overall brand, gaining this social proof is crucial for new sales and lead generation.
Keen to know more? Get in touch with the Suki Marketing team today to find out how we can help you gain more Facebook reviews and show up online. Don’t forget to grab your free ‘how to ask for reviews’ template further up, too!
