Facebook was once seen as the go-to social network to connect with friends, family, and broader circles. Over the years since its inception, it has reinvented itself and is now one of the most popular platforms for businesses to show their brand’s worth and attract new customers.
Collecting reviews on Facebook can earn a small business a lot of brownie points by helping claim more online real estate. But like with any review platform such as Yelp or Google reviews, Facebook reviews also carry the risk of being fake and unfairly damaging your business credibility.
If you’re wondering why to bother with Facebook reviews if they carry this inherent risk, read on to discover why they’re integral to a small business’s online reputation management.
Why Facebook Reviews Are Important To Small BusinessesDid you know that there are 90 million business pages on Facebook? 140 million businesses use Facebook to promote their products and services further.
Businesses, both small and big, recognize the value of Facebook as a business platform. It amasses a vast audience and contains tools for businesses to leverage that can help in catering to their specific target market.
Facebook reviews can benefit small businesses in several ways, but the primary advantages behind them are:
1. They boost salesWhen potential customers read reviews about your business, it becomes more authentic in their eyes. They want to see a company that cares about its customers and provides good service. Receiving that affirmation through reviews will make your business more trustworthy and encourage them to make an informed purchase decision.
2. It bridges communication gapsFacebook reviews also act as a platform to communicate with your customers and directly address their concerns. Reviews provide straight and honest feedback from your customers that can help you identify and build upon your strengths while eliminating your weaknesses.
Even the negative review can be turned around if you take action after receiving the feedback and respond professionally.
Believe it or not, Facebook reviews do play a part in improving your SEO ranking. The more times your business is mentioned, rated, and reviewed, the more visibility it will gain on Google’s search. SEO experts have claimed that reviews account for 9.8% of the ranking factors.
How To Disable Facebook ReviewsClearly, growing your reviews on Facebook can be advantageous to you as a small business owner. But how do you handle the reviews left in bad faith, the false reviews that have no merit?
The answer is simple: you can remove them through these step-by-step instructions:
Download our free guide to discover the best ways to get more reviews for your Facebook profile, fast!
Check your Facebook Account for ReviewsThe first thing you should do is log into your Facebook account and navigate over to your business page.
If you have Facebook reviews enabled already, you should see the Reviews tab on the left-hand side of your Facebook page. Click it!
Here’s an example of a local business to give you an idea:
From there, you’ll be able to read through all the online reviews left by customers online and also view the average rating your business has scored.
It’s wise to have a small team that manages all things digital marketing for you. Having that team allocate time for review management is essential, especially as your business grows.
Read through the reviews on your Facebook Business page and flag those that are suspicious or seem fake. There are steps you can take to deal with these.
Disable reviews section from Facebook
Of course, you could save all the trouble of worrying about fake or bad reviews being seen by removing them all together.
To be extra clear: this does not remove the reviews posted by the users.
It only hides the section, taking all your Facebook Reviews off the public’s radar. Keep in mind this is a double-edged sword, especially if you’ve garnered 5* ratings and reviews for your service. But if you have a large number of fake reviews, this is an excellent option to go for.
Here are the steps to remove the Facebook Reviews section from your Business Page:
You can turn them back on later, any time you want through this same section.
Respond to Your Facebook Reviews
Sometimes, the solution doesn’t lie in hiding the Facebook reviews section all together. It’s important to gauge the review itself, and no matter what the scenario: respond to them.
Negative Facebook reviews can actually bring about a positive effect on your business.
Customers may grow suspicious of a business with a large number of star ratings and star reviews but zero negative reviews. All businesses are bound to make mistakes, and they know that.
Furthermore, if you respond to a negative or fake review in a professional manner, it’s a testament to your business values and good customer service. It also indicates to potential customers that you are active on social media.
That being said, here are sample templates you can leverage to respond to a review, depending on its nature. Be sure to check out our pointers on how to respond to reviews fully to make sure yours lines up with your business tone and situation.
Example response to a positive review
“Thank you very much for the positive feedback! Our team is committed to delivering the highest quality service and are thrilled to hear you had a positive customer experience with us. We appreciate the time you’ve taken to share your thoughts and hope to serve you again in the future!
Example response to an authentic negative review
“We sincerely apologize that our service was not satisfactory.
We aim to provide the most excellent customer service and carry our business with high standards. It is of deep concern that our standards were not met in your customer experience. Your satisfaction is important to us, and we will ensure this does not happen again.”
Example response to a fake review
“Thank you for contacting us. We take our customer satisfaction very seriously. Regretfully, we do not have any customer service on record associated with your name and believe this review may be erroneous in nature. Please contact us at [CUSTOMER SERVICE EMAIL] if you would like further clarification. If we do not hear from you, we will follow up with Facebook to remove this erroneous review.”
How to Report Fake Facebook ReviewsYou received a fake review that is borderline slander or involves hate speech and negative comments. It could also be doing a lot of damage to your business credibility, and the only alternative you have is to get rid of it entirely.
Is it possible? Yes!
Follow these straightforward steps to get the review flagged with Facebook:
1. Find the review you want to remove.
2. Navigate to the top right-hand corner and click on the three dots. A drop-down menu will pop up and select “Find support or report Recommendation.”
3. Click the option most relevant for you and hit “Send”.
The review is now registered with Facebook. Once they review your complaint, if they find the review to be fraudulent or against Facebook’s Community Standards, the team will remove it directly from your Business page.
Get More Reviews On Facebook
One of the best and most proactive things you can do to turn around fake reviews or bad reviews is attract more positive ones. Go back to the customers you know had a positive customer experience with you and kindly ask them to drop in a good word for you on Facebook.
There are several ways you can reach out to customers and get more Facebook reviews.
Here are our resource articles that expand upon what you can do to:
Your first thought when you receive a negative or bad Facebook review should never be “how do I get rid of this”. Rather, “how can I prevent this from happening again?”
If you’ve grown a lot of positive reviews, seeing a fake one in the middle of them can put you off. But depending on the scenario, you should take the right action from the alternatives covered in this article and choose the one that suits you best.
In the long run, weighing your options and choosing the right strategy can help keep your reputation management practices sustainable and healthy while simultaneously growing your profits.
If you need further assistance on managing your reviews, check out our review management services and get in touch with us!
Now what?Discover the best ways to get more reviews for your Facebook profile, fast!
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Sometimes, the mantra "all publicity is good publicity" isn’t true. Negative reviews can damage the reputation of your business, and when you’re working tirelessly to improve your service or product — while still trying to bring in sales — it’s understandable to want to turn off Facebook reviews when the complaints get overwhelming.
According to HubSpot Research, 85% of customers are likely to share negative experiences with others.
For businesses trying to resolve problems without having too much bad press, having no reviews visible on certain platforms can be a better solution.
You’re not alone, businesses go through rough patches sometimes, and there’s steps to take to silence the noise. Today, we’ll walk you through how to turn off reviews on Facebook, and give you reasons why you should, or shouldn’t, remove them.
If you own more than one business page, you want to make sure you select the page you want to disable Facebook reviews for.
When you click on Settings, you’ll be taken to a selection of choices all under the umbrella of Page Settings.
Once you have toggled the button, it will be the color gray, indicating that you’ve successfully turned off reviews. This action is saved automatically, so your customers won’t see or be able to post any reviews on your page moving forward.
Turning off Facebook reviews is a big call to make that can have both positive and negative implications. Before making that decision, it's important to consider both how your business is faring as a whole and how your audience is perceiving you as a result.
There are going to be points when business isn't booming — ugly stretches where you're prone to an influx of bad reviews. Some reasons to consider turning them off would be:
If your business is in a rough patch that you're working tirelessly to address, it might be in your best interest to turn off Facebook reviews until you're on the side of it.
On another hand, there’s some positive reasons to keep them up even if they’re not the ratings you want, and it’s worth considering before you turn them off.
Reviews — good or bad — provide a degree of legitimacy to your business. They let potential customers know that others engage with your company and imply that you care about customer feedback.
Keeping reviews up also provides you with the opportunity to respond to customer reviews and feedback. You get to say your piece and let prospects and customers know that you hear them. You can demonstrate that you understand where they're coming from and are willing to take the necessary steps to address the issues and concerns they're raising.
Even if all your customer reviews aren’t a perfect five-star rating, your customers will value the ability to read customer review testimonials. Turning off Facebook reviews can possibly kneecap your perceived authenticity. Sometimes it might be better to face the music and explicitly let your audience know the specific strides you plan on taking to make things right.
Turning off Facebook reviews is a process that should take a lot of thought and consideration. It's up to you to decide whether taking harsh reviews on the chin or keeping things calm until you have your business in order suits your situation better.
No matter which route you take, it's helpful to know how to shut Facebook reviews down — just in case they get to be too much.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published in July 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.
Topics: Customer Reviews and Testimonials Customer Service Tracking Software
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The owner of the public, according to the rules of Facebook, does not have the right to delete reviews.
And 30 units delivered to the page within an hour from fake accounts can significantly lower the rating. What to do in such cases? This article contains life experience and a useful life hack from the first photography school in Ukraine - the Kyiv School of Photography.
What do you do before you make an important purchase? Go read reviews!
Guessed? Of course, options are possible: ask a question on social networks, monitor the market, read articles on the topic. But the fact remains - the vast majority would rather believe the word "Aunt Lucy, whose godfather was and told ...". And maybe 1 "freak" out of 1000 will go to Google to check if Aunt Lyusina's godfather was really there?;)
Almost every business, big and small, has its own Facebook page .
Each page has a rating of , which is directly related to the quantity and quality of ratings of buyers.
And since we are dealing with very different people, their reaction to what we do cannot be the same. Among these ratings and reviews there will always be a certain percentage of negative . And this is normal. It helps you find weak spots and strengthen them.
As long as the negative evaluation does not turn into a weapon. When you are evaluated by someone who has never met you and your business.
Only from Kyiv and the region every month Google receives 600 requests "buy or order reviews" .
Makes you think, doesn't it?
Any opportunities always give birth to those who know how to use them. Both for good and for harm.
Aggressive marketing (hard marketing) has existed long before the advent of social networks. And, as expected, he was armed with all the FB tools.
Did you know that there are entire companies that churn out fake accounts every day? The so-called " bot farms "? It is from them, on the “face” command from your unscrupulous competitor, units and “I didn’t like anything” reviews will be poured into your public.
We know people whose business reputation has been threatened by these "methods." The Kyiv School of Photography had a similar experience twice. That is why the "reviews" section on our page is periodically closed .
And the rating dropped from 5 to 4.3.
An ingeniously simple solution to this problem came up recently. But without a background, you will not be able to appreciate how simple and ingenious it turned out to be)) Almost every business, from small to large, has its own page.
The first attack of bots on the public KCF.
At that moment K.Sova, the founder of the photography school, was in Feodosiya, Crimea. On the page of the photography school, we posted his report from the base of the Marines, surrounded by Russian troops. It was with her that the annexation of Crimea began.
Within an hour, a dozen Russian bots ran onto the page, with “ones” in their ratings and foul language in the comments.
It's a good thing, Mr. Zuckerberg is a prudent comrade: we complained about the "motive of persecution and a hostile statement", attached screenshots of bots "from a casket, the same as the face.
" A few days later, both the accounts and the reviews they left disappeared from our page.
The second time we were attacked by the bots of a competing photography school.
30 people came to the page and left 30 “+1” marks within an hour. Unlike the previous case, there were real accomplices here, as well as the same purchased bots. The desire to harm was so desperate that any method was used: from headhunting to unauthorized use of the name, from plagiarism to slander. It was the only case in our practice when the new photography school did not shun methods of fighting for a place in the sun. Then we decided to close the reviews on the page.
Remember that closing the "reviews" section hides your "hard-earned" rating from the eyes of newcomers. In the case of CCF, for some time we lost one of the main channels of communication between our established clients and potential ones.
Of course, the book of reviews on the site worked. But FB adherents, nevertheless, find it more convenient to find information about you without leaving the window ...
About a week ago, we created an internal secret group for our colleagues called "Chinese Reviews". We agreed to collect in it reposts of all posts containing reviews or mentions of the CCF and our events. After all, they regularly flash in the feed of each teacher and employee. Already on the same day, reposts poured into the group from the tapes of friends of all KSHFshnikov)) Reading the 10th post, we all sobbed) with happiness) . And on the 15th they realized that hiding this from people is an unforgivable crime!
And we changed the status of the Facebook group to “open to everyone” ►
Create a REVIEWS group and link it to your Business Page
It's worth emphasizing once again that our goal was not to hide from negative reviews.
All clients of the photo school still have access to reviews on the site.
This method is a last resort. In a situation where the flow of negativity cannot be stopped, because it is not human generated.
Why is a feedback group safer and more effective in such situations?
1. Everyone sees the posts of real people. They can go to their feed, knock on friends, ask something in a personal.
2. No bot will get through - you administer the inbox.
3. There is no rating in the group. Not tied to a grading system.
4. The group can be linked to your page - and then no one will use your feedback.
5. Any post from this group can be reposted further. In this case, neither your mark nor the author of the post will be lost.
6. A link to this group can be given to any newcomer who does not want to read reviews on your site.
7. Almost every review will contain a selfie or a mini-report from the place of events from the author. Therefore, no one will convict you of photoshop, product placement and other mortal sins.
8. You and each team member have a new "place of power". Which feeds with a resource and shouts: “What you are doing here is cool! This is what people need! It brings joy! It helps you grow!
And then, even in the darkest times, your wings will spread and flap with renewed vigor!
Create your FB Book of Reviews and let the world know about you from the lips of your followers!
May the Aperture be with you!
Text: Yulia Savenko, co-founder of KSHF
Video: Dmitry Sakharov, art director of KSHF.
The bot doesn't have time to act like a human. Over time, they will learn to imitate a person. But for now, non-humans will be distinguished by facelessness. There are no emotions in the bot's timeline.
1. Anonymity. The avatar and photos from the album are collected from the network. How to check? Download an avatar or album photo from the bot page and drag it into the Google Images search field.
As a rule, bots do not indicate any personal information in the profile. A slob bot may not have an avatar at all. Bot friends may not have avatars because they are from a common network - a "botnet"
2. Hyper-activity in other people's accounts. The bot needs real people to make friends with it. Therefore, in two days he can leave 300 likes, make 50 reposts and invite 500 people as friends.
3. Hypo-activity in your account. If the friends of the bot write 10 comments under a successful bot post, then the bot will not respond to any of them. It's just not online))
4. The same content. Often a group of bots (botnets) repost the same content, such as advertisements. Exclusively commercial content in the feed is the most striking sign of a bot.
5. Invisible bot. Since the bot is a boring face, you can note such an oddity - zero-three likes under the posts of a bot that has 4900 friends.
Many of you run your own business.
Axiom: small and medium businesses should be placed on Google maps. After that, reviews appear under your location. PROBLEM: And, probably, you had such a desire - to take Google customer reviews and paste them into the site. Google Map experts report that the platform itself does not provide such an opportunity. Pity? Pity!
SOLUTION:
An example of the design of "Google reviews on the site", see the course Composition online
I am aware that such a solution is not optimal.
It is from the category of "need for inventions is cunning." And how did you solve this problem?
And, by the way, once again I want to thank everyone who took the time and a few words of gratitude, it is very important for us. You can leave a review about the photography school right now on our Google Maps page
Any company in 2021 is subject to online reviews that can either improve or destroy their business. Are you worried about trolls or a campaign trying to discredit your online business? This tutorial will show you how to turn off reviews on Facebook and how to respond to negative reviews to stay on top no matter what they say.
Testimonials, or social proof as they are called, are incredibly powerful. Few people buy anything online without first checking the reviews and seeing the negative reviews, even one bad review with 99 positives is enough to put some buyers off.
If you run a business, Facebook is an integral part of your business.
marketing mix. With billions of users, multiple ways to interact with customers, two-way communication with your fans, and multiple methods you can use to interact, why not use this?
Although there are obvious disadvantages. The same trolls and assholes that make it hard to use Facebook as an individual can be the same in business. Facebook is also being used to deliberately discredit certain businesses through review bombing and coordinated social media marketing campaigns.
Search ‘buy negative reviews on Facebook’ online and see dozens of companies offering to sell negative reviews. For little money, you can buy negative reviews to ostensibly counter the many positive reviews to make your profile more realistic. In fact, these services are used to discredit competitors. No one thinks for a second that any company will intentionally add a negative review to their account.
You can turn off reviews or report and remove fake ones.
Most will suggest deleting fake ones and leaving reviews enabled. If you are constantly exposed to fakes, the only way may be to turn them off completely.
To disable feedback:
After completing these steps, your Facebook Page viewers will no longer see reviews.
This is the core option, as reviews are important in making a purchase decision, but if you have no choice, turn them off that way.
If you've only come across a few fake reviews, you'd be better off dealing with them instead of disabling feedback.
Here's how to do it:
If you've ever given up on Facebook before, you didn't have much hope that anything would happen. However, you must follow the process and let the company do something or nothing before moving on.
The measure of a business is not how it handles day-to-day operations, but how it handles itself when things go wrong. Your first impulse may be anger, desperation, and a desire for revenge, but none of these will work on Facebook.
The key to dealing with negative feedback is to do it calmly and professionally.
Responding with ranting will not bring you new customers or increase loyalty. However, if you solve the problem, offer to work with the client to ensure their satisfaction, and act in a professional and appropriate manner, a negative review can actually work for you, not against you.
Customers benefit from seeing how a company handles criticism. If you do it professionally and rise above any vitriol spilled in the review, you will come out on top. Offer to work with the client to make sure they are happy, you reassure all clients that even if something goes wrong, you will get their back. It deserves a lot of positive feedback.
However, the company is taking steps to prevent these fake review accounts from harming innocent businesses. More recently, the company has removed more than 16,000 accounts for this behavior.
Handling fake reviews is slightly different, but it can also be turned on its head. Being honest and upfront with your customers about what's going on and asking them to leave positive reviews to counter fakes can work.
