Do you also use the internet to search for a place to eat, a place to have fun, dance, or relax, or a service to hire? So, do you read online reviews and see if people approve or disapprove of the place and would recommend it, to make a more confident decision?
That's right! And you're not alone! Many more people follow this same behavior.
To give you an idea, one in three people on Facebook use the platform to look for recommendations and reviews of places to go, eat, or shop.
This post is exactly about that, how adding recommendations and reviews on Facebook helps you close more deals.
Happy reading.
Business online reputation: what are reviews and their importance for your business?
Online reviews are feedback left by customers describing their experience with a particular brand. These comments are posted on sites such as Google My Business, TripAdvisor, Yelp, Fousquase, or Facebook.
Online reviews help other consumers make purchasing decisions and also help companies continually improve the brand experience.
Furthermore, online reviews also play an important role in a brand's digital presence. They are how a business's online reputation is built. Having an reputation management strategy is crucial for companies for four main reasons:
1) Social proof
Online reviews are social proof. The greater the number of reviews approving the experience delivered by the business, the stronger the social proof in favor of the brand, impacting the purchase decision. You demonstrate that you receive a large number of customers, and by receiving a large number of reviews, consumers are positively impacted. Furthermore, you always have recent reviews, noting that, according to research by Bright Local, 40% of them ignore reviews less than two weeks old.
2) Local SEO
Online reviews are content containing relevant keywords that help a business position itself better online. The more keywords related to and relevant to your business that Google indexes, the greater your chances of ranking first in local search results ( 3 key factors for ranking on Google) . In other words, online reviews and ratings are content generated by your customers about your brand, promoting your company. To give you an idea, online reviews impact more than 15% of local pack results. They appear third on a list of key factors for ranking in a local search.
3) Customer experience
Online reviews are feedback from your customers. Therefore, they're an excellent source for discovering what's wrong with the experience and knowing exactly what needs to be improved. This means less effort for your team to deliver a better experience. How online reviews help improve the customer experience .
4) Relationship
Responding to online reviews is an excellent opportunity to strengthen your relationship with your customers and show potential customers that you genuinely care about their satisfaction. To give you an idea, according to research, 45% of consumers prefer companies that respond to their reviews. Furthermore, responding to and engaging with these customers through their reviews demonstrates that your brand is customer-centric and humanized.
👉Check out: 7 simple steps to never make mistakes when responding to negative online customer reviews again
Facebook recommendations: what are you missing out on by ignoring them in your customer acquisition strategies?
You may have noticed that Facebook's old star-rating system has been replaced by "recommendations." In short, instead of your customer rating their experience with your business on a scale of one to five stars, they're now asked the question: "Do you recommend this place?" Their options are "yes" or "no."
According to Alex Himmel, Facebook Local's vice president at the time, people use recommendations to ask the community where to go, where to eat, or where to shop. By replacing "stars" with recommendations, we're making these recommendations more relevant.
According to Facebook For Business , 1.6 billion people on the platform are connected to a small business, and more than 1.2 billion people on Facebook are connected to a small business in another country.
To give you an idea, one in three people on Facebook use the platform to look for recommendations and reviews of businesses.
In other words, reviews and recommendations are extremely important for any company's reputation. When it comes to Facebook, people are accessing the platform to ask friends where to go, eat, or shop.
A recommendation from a friend or even a customer who has already had an experience with a brand is far more influential than any advertising pitch from the brand itself. 92% of consumers worldwide say they completely trust a recommendation from a friend or family member above any other form of advertising – (Nielsen).
You need to manage reviews on Facebook to ensure your business has the highest recommendations and is recommended to other potential customers when they are looking for something to go to, eat, or buy. After all, we are talking about 1.6 billion users on the platform connected to a company.
How can your business make the most of Facebook recommendations to attract more customers?
1) Your business is easier to find
Recommendations from friends are valuable for getting your business discovered. More than half of customers surveyed ( 52% ) say they feel that personal connections on Facebook and Instagram help them discover interesting businesses or events.
Here I want to highlight the importance of you, if you have more than one establishment, creating a specific page on the platform for each of your establishments, for the following reasons:
- Help potential customers find your business;
- Increases your chances of being found in a local search;
- A map with locations will be displayed on your Home Page, helping customers find establishments near them;
- Customers will leave reviews on each establishment's page.
- You can promote each of your pages locally and individually, helping potential customers discover places near them.
Here you will find more information about Publishing a Facebook Page for each of your establishments and how to Configure the structure of your establishment's Facebook Pages.
2) More humanized business
Among consumers, 46% agree that information shared by local businesses makes shopping more personal, making Facebook recommendations a valuable asset for businesses to incorporate into their marketing strategies. To successfully market your business on Facebook today, you must highlight the human elements of your company with content that includes your people, your culture, your values, and your involvement in the community as a whole. In other words, engage with your customers' recommendations as if it were a conversation.
👉Check out: Relationship Marketing: Everything You Really Need to Know
3) Business with More Influence in Digital
Facebook recommendations offer the opportunity to get more robust customer feedback—richer in detail about what impacted their experience with your brand.
What does this mean for your business? Take a look at the keywords mentioned in the recommendations and keep them in mind with every customer service interaction.
Remember the topic about local SEO we talked about?
Investing in a strategy to generate recommendations for your business on Facebook is an excellent opportunity to boost your SEO and increase your chances of being found.
Precisely because, for a customer to review your business on Facebook, they're "required" to write at least 25 characters describing why they recommend or not your business. This way, your chances of getting more real and information-rich feedback are much higher.
How to enable recommendations on Facebook
To turn on recommendations for your Page:
- Click Settings at the top of the Page.
- Click Templates & Guides in the left column.
- Scroll down and click Add a tab.
- Find the “Recommendations” tab and click Add Tab next to it.
Facebook is just one of the many channels where you need to monitor your online reputation. Also check out: Google My Business: How to create a profile and use it to expand your company's reach
What did you think of this article? If you have any questions, leave them in the comments and we'll answer them! =D
Check out our webinar on the feedback economy
