Facebook has gotten rid of its 5-star review system and switched to Recommendations. We’ve seen glimpses of this pending change in recent months, as Facebook promoted the Recommendations feature to users seeking input from their Facebook universe on everything from babysitters to car purchases. Now Facebook is going all-in on this more personal approach, and it appears they have local businesses in mind with this switch.
Here are a few things you need to know about this change for Business Pages:
- Customers will no longer be able to leave star reviews about your business. But never fear, your accumulated ratings will not be going away. They’re now displayed differently on your Facebook business page – instead of stars, there is a number rating (out of 5). Moving forward, it appears that Facebook will present viewers with a combination of star ratings and recommendations. (There are rumblings that Facebook is testing a rating system that would go up to 10, and would include multiple data points. But we haven’t seen it on any of the pages we manage yet, and it remains to be seen if this will make it to the platform.)
- When someone recommends your business to a friend, they can choose the audience for that Recommendation. Only Recommendations that are shared publicly will be visible on your Business Page.
- Facebook users will be asked to provide a simple “yes” or “no” response to the question: Do you recommend this business? Facebook will then prompt for more information, including tags, text (a minimum of 25 characters), and/or photos.
- If you had the “Reviews” tab active on your Facebook Business Page, you automatically have “Recommendations” active now. You don’t have to do anything.
- Facebook is also making it easier to report Recommendations that don’t follow their Community Standards. If you ever tried to have a fraudulent Review removed from your page, you know this is a welcome improvement.
As always, our Interactive Marketing team will continue to monitor changes and updates from Facebook for their Business Pages. If you are interested in learning more about our Reputation and Review Management Services for your business, contact us today.
