Social media plays an important role in local businesses today. If you’re a business with an online presence, you’d be seriously remiss if you didn’t have an active Facebook business Page. (Not to be confused with your personal FB account.) With your business’s Facebook Page, you’re able to collect reviews from people who have checked into your place of business, which is crucial if you want any shot at securing any of the website’s 1.37 billion daily active users as your own customers.

Particularly for local, service-based businesses, Facebook is king. Many people will search for your type of business on Facebook (or post a status asking friends for recommendations) before they turn to Google or Bing. This blog post will go over the ways you can work on getting Facebook reviews so your company can rise to the top of the pack.

How Facebook Reviews Impact Business

Having great reviews on Facebook will instantly increase your chances of getting new customers because online reviews build trust. Even if you have a couple of poor reviews sprinkled in—the statistic still stands that 84% of people trust online reviews just as much as a personal recommendation. That’s a pretty powerful statistic! Even more, if your business is able to achieve a Facebook star-rating of 3 stars or more, you will be much better off winning business from your competitors.

There’s no doubt that your company needs Facebook reviews, and now it’s time to make sure you’re ready for all those happy remarks customers have been wanting to leave.

How to Enable Reviews on Your Facebook Business Page

If you search for a company on Facebook, chances are you’ll see a star rating correlating to their business listing. You might wonder how they got that. Well, once you have a Facebook Page set up for your company, you’ll want to make sure your page is configured to receive star ratings and reviews. Your reviews might possibly be hidden, which means you’re missing out on the chance to snag some stellar comments!

How to enable reviews on your Facebook Business Page:

1. Click “Settings” at the top of your Page
2. Go to “Edit Page” in the left-hand column
3. Scroll down to “Reviews”
4. Click “Settings” next to the Reviews section
5. Change the slider from OFF to ON
6. “Save” changes!

How to Get the Reviews Tab to Show Up on Your Facebook Page

After your Facebook Page is actually capable of receiving reviews, you’ll want to make it as easy as possible for your audience to access the feature. Facebook allows Page Managers to customize their tabs on the left-hand side of the page, and you can make one of those tabs be “Reviews” for easy access.

Here’s how to get the Reviews tab to show up on your Facebook Page:

1. Click “Settings”
2. Click “Edit Page”
3. You will see a section titled Tabs
4. Turn ON the option to “Use default tabs”
5. There, choices for pre-picked tabs will show up
6. Scroll down until you see “Add a Tab.” Click it.
7. Add the “Reviews” tab

You can now order your tabs as you’d like them to show up on your page. The more importance you place on getting reviews, the higher up on the list you may want to place it. Just hover over the tab until your cursor becomes the little hand symbol, then click and drag the tab to the position you’d like it.

How to Get Customers to Leave Facebook Reviews for Your Business

Alright, now you’re all set up to receive Facebook reviews! Now all you need is… yep, you guessed it: reviews. Sometimes people need a little push to give your business reviews. Many times, they don’t realize how important their reviews are to their favorite businesses. That’s where you come in.

It might be comforting to know that 7 out of 10 customers will leave a review if they’re asked to do so. That means all you need to do is ask, and you shall receive. If asking for Facebook reviews sounds like an uncomfortable task, just know you’re not alone. Lots of people loathe this part, but luckily, we’ve got some ideas to help you.

• Use these email templates to ask for reviews
• Create automated follow-ups
  • Email follow-ups
  • Text follow-ups
  • Direct mail
• Add a call-to-action to your website
• Ask people to check-in on Facebook; it will send them a reminder to write a review 1-2 days later
  • Offer a coupon or voucher if people check-in
  • Require people to check-in if they want to use your WiFi
  • Give a free upgrade if people check-in
• Promote a great review on Facebook with a call-to-action
• Put up signs in the office waiting room requesting reviews
• Ask customers directly after you’ve provided a service they’re happy with

There are plenty of ways to let customers know you’d like to receive more Facebook reviews, and one of those ways is letting them know how helpful they are to your business’s success. Because Facebook Reviews are a seriously big factor in grabbing the attention of social networkers looking for a local business or product. Trust us on that. And when you’re ready to start getting more awesome reviews, let Broadly help you out.

If you have a Facebook business Page (and if you don’t, you should), you have probably made good use out of the reviews feature. Facebook reviews allow consumers to give you a 1-to-5-star rating, with or without an added explanation.

As you’ve been monitoring these review, you may have noticed that some poor reviews have trickled in, and they’ve hurt your overall star rating… uh oh. Today we’re going to show you why online reviews matter and the options you have for removing bad reviews on Facebook. After reading this article, you should have a better handle on how to manage your company’s image on Facebook.

How to Remove the Review Section from Facebook

While removing Facebook reviews might seem like a good option for someone who’s received numerous negative reviews, keep in mind that you also won’t have positive reviews to show, either due to the methodology. In order to remove all negative reviews, you have to remove the entire reviews section from your Facebook Page. We don’t recommend doing this since having online reviews (good or bad) still increases your chances of landing customers. Nevertheless, we will teach you how to remove the Reviews section from your Facebook business Page.

To disable Facebook Reviews, follow these steps:

How to Remove the Review Section from Facebook

1. Go to your Facebook Page
2. Click on “Settings”
3. Click “Edit Page” in Facebook settings
4. Scroll down to “Reviews” and click “Settings” next to it
5. Move the slider to OFF
6. Click “Save”

Remember that disabling your reviews does not delete them, it just hides them. If you decide to enable your reviews again, the same reviews will come back up.

How to Delete Negative or Fake Facebook Reviews

If you’re like us, chances are you don’t want to remove ALL the reviews from your Facebook Page. After all, you probably have some really great reviews there! So you may be wondering how to only delete the bad or fake/spammy reviews. Well, as of right now, that is unfortunately not an option on Facebook.

You cannot pick and choose which reviews you delete. While it is frustrating, just think about how much it is helping honest businesses like yours from being in the same group as frauds who only publish positive reviews. In the long run, the bad guys will get weeded out, and you’ll rise above if you continue making customers happy. One or two bad reviews won’t kill your street cred.

However, you do have one option: Reporting reviews. You can report a fishy review to Facebook so they can investigate whether or not it should be taken down.

How to Report a Facebook Review:

1. Go to the review
2. Click the “. . .” in the upper right-hand corner
3. Click “Report post”

Impact Online Reviews Have on Businesses

Public sentiment can have a big impact on your company’s success. No matter what type of service or product you provide, if people talk about it, others will listen. Obviously,  that’s not good for business if you’re getting bad online reviews. As a business with a website, it’s important that you garner online reviews—people want to get opinions on whether or not they should give you their money, and reviews are often a big proponent in the decision-making process.

In fact, 90% of customers read 10 or fewer reviewers before trusting a business! And, to add to that, they spend about 31% more money if a business has excellent reviews. (See more online review stats here.)

While most companies would love to receive positive reviews 100% of the time, it’s just not realistic. And, unfortunately, on average, one negative review can cost you, 30 customers. Ouch. So, how can you fix this situation if it happens? Well, you can start by removing reviews on Facebook. Here are your options for handling and removing negative Facebook reviews.

How to Manage Facebook Reviews

Since you can’t just remove the bad ones and reporting reviews might not be effective for you, your best bet for handling your company’s Facebook image is to learn how to properly manage and reply to Facebook reviews.

If a customer leaves a positive review, it is recommended that you at least “like” their review, and then possibly thank the reviewer. Doing so will encourage them to continue speaking highly of you. If you’re not sure how to word your responses, we’ve compiled useful positive review response templates as well as handy tips.

As far as negative reviews go, believe it or not, it’s still best to respond to them rather than let them fester. Responding to negative reviews not only gives you the chance to apologize but in some cases, you’re also able to give your side of the story if appropriate. By handling your negative reviews with class and honesty, you’re showing potential customers that you’re willing to take responsibility. It also shows how great your customer service is. These negative review response templates and tips will help you navigate nasty comments with ease.

To use your positive reviews to your advantage, we suggest promoting them. Broadly has a special service that helps turn positive reviews into clickable Facebook ads, amplifying those stellar results you always promise. Let your best reviews outshine the few bad eggs.

Of course, the best way to keep managing your online reputation is to continually ask for reviews from happy customers. Eventually, you’ll have so many great reviews, the bad ones won’t even matter!

Whether good or bad, getting Facebook Reviews is crucial if you want to boost your customer base. Just remember that, even though you can’t remove the bad ones, you can still change the narrative with a well-thought-out response. And you can get even more positive reviews with the help of Broadly.

 

There are many social media networks out there today but there is still one that reigns king: Facebook. The mega-network boasted 1.37 billion daily active users in September 2017, with a 16-percent increase year-over-year. If your business doesn’t have a presence on Facebook yet, just think about all those eyes that could be on your business!

While having a presence on Facebook may seem like a no-brainer to some, there are certain steps you need to take to make sure your company is making the most of its time on Facebook’s platform. Because so many people are browsing the site, your business needs to hit all the marks to stand out from other companies.

Tips for Optimizing Facebook Business Pages

Plenty of people use Facebook as their search engine of choice (instead of, say, Google), which means there is a huge amount of customers you could be missing out on if your business’s Facebook presence is not optimized. Having all the right information, branding, and tools connected to your page is paramount to grabbing customers on this giant social network.

Below are our best tips for optimizing your Facebook Business Page.

1. Make sure you have a Facebook Business Page and not a personal account. There’s a big difference.
2. Assign a  vanity URL to your page—it will not be customized unless you do it manually. When completed, your vanity URL might look something like: facebook.com/jimstireservice
3. Add a profile picture that your customers will recognize (logos are great).
4. Add a captivating cover photo to show off more of what your business is all about. A horizontal image works best! Ideas include: storefront, staff photo, product photo, or a shot of your team at work.
5. Get reviews. One of the first things people will look at on your page is whether or not others like it before using the business themselves
6. Fill in your “About” section—this is what people will look at when trying to learn more about you. Make it concise but impactful; some people put mission statements here as well.
7. Respond to messages in a timely fashion. Doing so will automatically show potential customers that you are “Very responsive to messages,” giving you endless opportunities for stellar customer service.
8. Create custom page tabs according to the content and calls-to-action you wish to promote.
9. Add milestones. This will give customers a quick look at all your highlights!
10. Pick a call-to-action button to increase clicks.
11. Choose the right template. Facebook offers pre-made templates for various business types, making it easier for you to land sales.

Tips for Facebook Page Engagement

Once you’ve got your Facebook Business Page all set up and optimized, it’s time to start putting it to work! Without engagement, your Page will gather cobwebs, which can actually hurt you in the long run if people see a dormant Page without recent posts. Stay at the top of mind with these important and effective Facebook engagement tips.

1. Use Facebook’s Insights to get important audience engagement information such as the best days to post.
2. Post at the best times for your audience.
3. Prioritize quality over quantity—don’t post just to post.
4. Post the best of your blog content so people can click through to your website
5. Before sharing blog posts, make sure you’ve filled out the meta descriptions; meta descriptions are those short tidbits in the post preview that tell your audience what the post is about.
6. Make sure images are properly sized and formatted
7. Ask questions to encourage people to leave comments.
8. Once you post a link to an article or blog post, a preview should appear. Delete the link once the preview has appeared for a cleaner look.
9. Post videos! Videos are taking over social media. Consider what types of live videos your audience will want to see.
10. Use Facebook’s scheduling tool to be more efficient and schedule posts in advance so you don’t have to do it manually each time.
11. Add Facebook buttons to your website and blog to attract new likes.
12. Interact with audience comments, whether that means responding when necessary or simply “liking” their comment to show you saw it.
13. Respond to reviews, both negative and positive.

Tips on Facebook Promotion for Business

In addition to interacting with your audience, Facebook also has tools to help you promote your business, reaching even more of the billions of users on the platform. Facebook has many integrated tools to help you build your best promotions, and we recommend taking advantage of everything available.

1. Choose from one of the many advertising options available to you
2. Use the Audience Insights tool to learn more about your audience so you can target your promotions better
3. Promote great Facebook reviews to encourage new customers to work with you.
4. Test multiple versions of a single ad to see which one performs better
5. Take advantage of Facebook’s demographics and targeting tools to get your ad in front of the right eyes.
6. Target local customers with geographical ad placement
7. Target customers who have purchased from you before without keeping records manually
8. Target “look-a-like” audiences with Facebook’s custom tool that allows you to upload email addresses—Facebook then finds similar, new people.
9. Use the Facebook Offers app, which allows you to offer coupons that people must claim on Facebook
10. Create custom graphics or videos tailored to the Facebook crowd to increase ad conversions
11. Provide something free in your ad to get people out of the “social” mindset and into the “buying” mindset
12. Track ads to determine your cost per conversion

Once you start leaning into all the amazing tools Facebook offers for businesses, you’ll quickly realize how important it is for your company to be on this social media platform. If the 1.1 billion daily active users aren’t enough, just remember that people constantly search for local products/businesses on Facebook instead of Google. When you’re ready to enhance your Facebook Business Reviews, Broadly is ready to help you either promote awesome Facebook reviews or help you get more reviews.

 

Yelp has become one of the most revered and feared online review platforms. On one hand, it’s widely respected because great reviews mean really great things for your business—new customers can see how great your company is and walk through your door as a result. On the other hand, Yelp can be scary, because as much as this review website can help you, it can also hurt your business if you get too many bad reviews.

Today we’re going to look at Yelp with a comedic eye and laugh at all those funny Yelp reviews that are left on business’s Yelp profiles. There are all kinds of reviewers out there, so check out what these reviews look like so you can prepare some replies to both the good and bad reviews.

The Impact of Yelp Reviews On Businesses

The story is similar to any type of online review, be it on Yelp or another platform. Gathering positive reviews for your company is crucial to building upon your success. Did you know 87% of people say a business needs an online rating of 3 to 5 stars in order for them to use the company? And, on average, a 1-star increase on Yelp can actually lead to 5-9% increase in your business’s revenue. That’s a pretty nice jump for passive marketing!

Now, more than ever, you should be working towards securing online reviews. Of course, you’ll want positive reviews, but every now and then, you may get bad reviews. Don’t let those bad eggs derail you—there are plenty of ways to handle those negative reviews you receive.

Funny Yelp Review Examples

Unfortunately, some people are prone to trash-talking a company after one sub-par experience. “Yelpers” take pride in their detailed reviews and have built quite a niche for themselves. Leaving Yelp reviews has become their own form of commentary or short story. And some of these Yelpers, even if they’re leaving a bad review, manage to be quite humorous in the process. Below are some types of funny Yelp reviews you may come across.

The Person Who “Really Wanted to Like This Place, But…”

There’s always a “but…”, and it’s usually some nuanced complaint that has no significant value for your business to grow from.

The “Foodie”

You know the kind—they’re snapping Instagrams before they even order their food… Only to find out three minutes later that you don’t serve gluten-free, fat-free, carb-free avocado toast with edible flowers on top. This person clearly didn’t read the menu before posting on Instagram, and they’re not going to be thrilled no matter what concoction your kitchen whips up. Don’t take it personally.

The Person Who’s Been-There, Done-That

And yet they keep returning to talk about it on Yelp. They’re too cool for you, and they want you to know it… In case you didn’t already know it from their “Elite” reviewer status and perfectly poised profile photo. But, just in case you didn’t, they’ll tell you.

The Happy Customer

While most funny Yelp reviews are negative, it’s still possible for positive reviews to add some humor into their reviews. The Happy Customer is the kind of person you want leaving you reviews forever and ever—their kind words are exactly what you’ve been hoping for.

The Yelp Star

Speaking of those “Elite” reviewers, there’s a whole pack of them and it seems they’re all friends. They write blog-post-length reviews about your business like their food critics for the New York Times, and all their friends interact with their reviews that do nothing more than reiterate everything that’s on your website. But, hey, at least it’s free advertising!

The Yeller

No, that wasn’t a typo in “Yelper.” The Yeller hates everything and tells you about it with all CAPS. Because the simple syntax isn’t enough to convey their anger. Yikes.

The Anti-Change Champion

A new store in my rural, charming town?! NO. Terrible. I hate it. Even though they have great window treatments, I hate it. Because of monopolies and gentrification and something about the stock market. (What?)

The Newbie

They walked into your store the first day it opened and noticed a few kinks that hadn’t been worked out. Instead of shrugging and understanding that this is normal for any business, they went straight to Yelp to talk about the incompetence of your employees. And, of course, they didn’t mention they visited on your first day of business.

The Bad Speller

It just hurts to look. Isn’t spell-check pretty much included on every computer and device nowadays?

The Bad, Good Reviewer

Some reviews are sprinkled with witty, negative language, and it takes awhile to realize it’s sarcasm. Reviewers take their comedic prowess all the way to the rating score, and you’re now suffering a not-so-funny 1-star review for pizza so delicious it made the reviewer gain weight.

The Poet

Every now and then, a review will move to the rhythm of a metronome, and you suddenly realize the reviewer is a regular Dr. Suess. For these guys, it’s less about reviewing the company and more about being discovered as The Voice of His Generation.

The Person Who “Never Usually Writes Reviews, But…”

There’s that big but again. Always with the but.

The Person Who Just Wants to Complain

They loved everything about your company! The customer service, the product, the price. But they hated that you didn’t have comfy chairs outside the dressing room for their husband. So you only got 3 stars.

As you’ve probably realized by now, you can’t please everybody. There will always be someone who’s having a bad day, or, like the example above, just wasn’t in the mood for a bunch of Neil Diamond music. But that shouldn’t stop you from asking for reviews from your customers (especially the happy ones)—our templates may be helpful if you’re not sure how to ask.

Plus, you can always report inappropriate yelp reviews that cross the line. Just remember to always respond to all your reviews… whether they are negative or positive (here’s how to respond to positive reviews)!