Facebook Review Management for Local Businesses: The Complete Guide

Here's a number that should stop you cold: 3 billion people use Facebook every month. A significant chunk of them ask their friends for business recommendations directly on the platform, and those recommendations show up in search results, on Facebook Maps, and in the news feeds of everyone connected to the person who left them.

Yet most local businesses treat Facebook reviews as an afterthought. They obsess over Google stars, ignore the notification that someone just recommended (or didn't recommend) their business on Facebook, and miss one of the most powerful forms of social proof available to them.

The difference between Google and Facebook isn't just platform preference. It's the nature of the trust signal itself. When a stranger leaves a Google review, it carries weight. When your neighbor, your coworker, or your cousin's friend recommends a business on Facebook, it carries a different kind of weight entirely. That's the opportunity most local businesses are leaving on the table.

This guide covers everything you need to know about Facebook review management, from understanding how the system actually works today to building a strategy that turns your Facebook Page into a trust-building machine.

What Facebook Recommendations Actually Are (and What Changed in 2018)

Before 2018, Facebook used a familiar 1-to-5 star rating system. Customers picked a number, wrote an optional comment, and moved on. It looked a lot like Google or Yelp.

Then Facebook scrapped it.

In 2018, Facebook replaced star ratings with a binary Recommendations system. Instead of choosing a star count, customers answer one question: "Do you recommend [Business Name]?" They click Yes or No, then optionally add a written comment, photos, and tags.

This change has real implications for how you think about your Facebook presence:

• There's no average rating to display. Facebook shows a percentage of people who recommend your business, along with the total number of recommendations.
• Negative recommendations are visible. Someone who clicks "No" and writes a comment appears publicly on your Page. You can't filter them out.
• The bar for engagement is lower. A customer who'd never bother writing a full review might click "Yes" and add a quick sentence. That still counts.
• Tags matter. Facebook lets recommenders tag their experience with descriptors like "great service," "good for kids," or "cozy atmosphere." These tags aggregate and appear on your Page, giving visitors a quick snapshot of what people value about your business.

Understanding this system is the foundation of everything else. You're not managing star ratings anymore. You're managing a social endorsement network.

Why Facebook Recommendations Are Often Overlooked

Most local business owners focus their review energy on Google, and the logic makes sense on the surface. Google reviews affect local SEO rankings directly. They appear in Google Maps. They show up when someone searches your business name. The connection between Google reviews and new customers is obvious and well-documented.

Facebook's impact is less direct but arguably more powerful in certain contexts. Here's why businesses tend to underestimate it:

The algorithm hides the reach. When someone recommends your business on Facebook, that recommendation can appear in their friends' news feeds. But because Facebook's algorithm controls what people see, business owners rarely witness this happening. The ripple effect is real, but it's invisible.

The notification system is easy to miss. Facebook Page notifications aren't as prominent as a Google alert or an email. Many owners simply don't know a recommendation came in until days later, by which point responding feels awkward.

The "No" problem creates avoidance. The binary system means a negative recommendation is more stark than a 2-star review. Some business owners turn off recommendations entirely to avoid the risk, which eliminates the upside along with the downside.

It doesn't feel like SEO. Because Facebook recommendations don't feed directly into Google rankings the way Google reviews do, they get deprioritized. But Facebook has its own search, its own Maps product, and its own discovery ecosystem, all of which surface recommendations prominently.

For a deeper look at how reviews across all platforms connect to your local search visibility, see our guide on how reviews affect local SEO rankings.

The Facebook Review Management Framework

Step 1: Audit Your Page Settings

Before anything else, check whether recommendations are enabled on your Page.

Go to your Facebook Page, click Settings, then Privacy, then look for the Reviews section. You'll see an option to turn recommendations on or off.

If recommendations are currently off, think carefully before turning them back on. The upside is significant: you get social proof, you get content, you get a feedback channel. The downside is that negative recommendations become visible. For most businesses with good service, the upside wins. For businesses actively dealing with a reputation crisis, it might make sense to wait until you've addressed the underlying issues.

Also check that your Page category is set correctly. Facebook uses your category to determine which features appear on your Page, including whether the Recommendations tab shows up at all.

Step 2: Claim and Complete Your Page

A half-finished Facebook Page undermines every recommendation you receive. Before you ask anyone to recommend your business, make sure your Page has:

• Accurate business hours (updated for holidays and seasonal changes)
• A complete address that matches your Google Business Profile exactly
• A working phone number and website link
• A clear, professional cover photo and profile image
• A filled-out "About" section with your business description

Consistency matters here. If your address appears differently on Facebook than it does on Google, that inconsistency can confuse both customers and search algorithms. This is part of the broader citation consistency work covered in our guide to Google Business Profile reviews.

Step 3: Build a Recommendation Request Process

Asking for Facebook recommendations requires a slightly different approach than asking for Google reviews. Here's why: Facebook is a social platform. The ask feels more personal, and the response is more personal too.

Timing is everything. Ask at the moment of peak satisfaction, not a week later when the experience has faded. For a restaurant, that might be when the check arrives. For a service business, it's right after the job is complete and the customer has expressed satisfaction.

Make the ask specific. "Would you mind leaving us a Google review?" is a familiar request. "Would you recommend us on Facebook?" is slightly less common, which means it stands out. Be direct: "If you had a great experience today, we'd really appreciate it if you'd recommend us on our Facebook Page. It helps other people in the area find us."

Use physical prompts. A small card at checkout, a note on your receipt, or a sign near the exit can remind customers to recommend you. Include a QR code that links directly to your Facebook Page's Reviews tab.

Follow up by email or text. If you collect customer contact information, a follow-up message 24 to 48 hours after a visit can prompt recommendations from customers who meant to leave one but forgot. Keep the message short and genuine.

For a broader look at asking customers for reviews across platforms, see our guide on how to ask customers for reviews.

Step 4: Respond to Every Recommendation

This is where most businesses fail. They get a recommendation, feel good about it, and move on without responding. That's a missed opportunity.

Responding to positive recommendations does three things:

1. It shows the recommender that you noticed and appreciate them.
2. It signals to everyone reading your Page that you're engaged and attentive.
3. It adds fresh content to your Page, which Facebook's algorithm tends to reward.

Keep positive responses warm but not formulaic. Vary your language. Mention something specific from their comment if they included one. A response like "Thanks for the kind words!" is fine. A response like "So glad the team could help you find the right fit, Maria, we'll pass along your compliments!" is better.

Negative recommendations require more care. You can't delete them (unless they violate Facebook's Community Standards, in which case you can report them). You can't respond privately through Facebook's native tools. Your public reply is your only tool, and it's a powerful one.

The goal of responding to a negative recommendation isn't to win an argument. It's to demonstrate to everyone reading that you take feedback seriously and handle problems professionally. Keep your response calm, acknowledge the experience, and offer a path to resolution. Something like: "We're sorry to hear this wasn't the experience we aim to provide. Please reach out to us directly at [contact info] so we can make it right."

Our full guide on responding to negative reviews covers the psychology and tactics in detail.

Step 5: Monitor and Track Consistently

Set up Facebook Page notifications so you're alerted when new recommendations come in. Aim to respond within 24 hours, ideally faster. A recommendation that sits unanswered for a week looks like neglect.

Beyond individual responses, track your recommendation trends over time. Are you getting more recommendations after a particular staff member works a shift? After a specific promotion? After you changed your hours? The patterns in your recommendations are a feedback loop that can inform real business decisions.

How Facebook Recommendations Work Across Industries

Restaurants and Cafes

For food and beverage businesses, Facebook recommendations carry particular weight because dining decisions are intensely social. People ask friends where to eat constantly, and Facebook's social graph makes those recommendations visible at scale.

A restaurant in a mid-sized city ran a simple experiment: they trained their servers to mention their Facebook Page at the end of positive interactions, specifically asking happy customers to recommend them. Within three months, their recommendation count doubled. More importantly, they started seeing new customers mention "I saw you recommended on Facebook" when making reservations.

The tags feature is especially valuable for restaurants. When multiple customers tag "great for date night" or "good for groups," those tags aggregate on your Page and help potential customers self-select. You're not just collecting endorsements, you're building a searchable profile of what your business is actually good at.

Service Businesses (Plumbers, Electricians, Cleaners)

For service businesses, trust is the primary purchase driver. Customers are letting strangers into their homes. A Facebook recommendation from someone in their network carries enormous weight because it comes with implicit accountability.

A local cleaning service found that their Facebook recommendations converted at a higher rate than their Google reviews when it came to referral traffic. The reason: when a potential customer saw that their neighbor had recommended the service, the decision felt much lower-risk. The social connection reduced the perceived uncertainty.

Service businesses should also pay attention to check-ins. When a customer checks in at your business (or tags your business in a post), it can trigger a prompt asking if they'd like to recommend you. Encouraging check-ins, especially for businesses with a physical location, creates a natural pipeline to recommendations.

Retail Shops

Independent retailers compete against e-commerce giants on price and convenience. They can't win those battles. What they can win is community connection, and Facebook recommendations are a direct expression of that.

A boutique clothing shop started featuring customer recommendations in their window display, printing out particularly enthusiastic ones and posting them alongside the products mentioned. The physical display drove more Facebook engagement, which drove more recommendations, which drove more foot traffic. The loop reinforced itself.

For retail, the "tags" feature is worth actively encouraging. When customers tag "unique finds," "friendly staff," or "locally owned," those tags become part of your Page's identity and help you stand out from chain competitors.

Facebook vs. Google Reviews: A Direct Comparison

The key takeaway: Google reviews and Facebook recommendations serve different but complementary purposes. Google drives search discovery. Facebook drives social trust. A strong local business reputation strategy needs both.

For a complete picture of why both matter, see our guide on why online reviews matter for your business.

The Social Proof Advantage: Why Facebook Hits Different

There's a concept in psychology called social proof, the tendency to look to others' behavior when making decisions under uncertainty. Facebook recommendations tap into a more powerful version of this: social proof from people you actually know.

When you see that a stranger gave a restaurant 4 stars on Google, you factor that in. When you see that your college roommate, your neighbor, and your coworker all recommended the same restaurant on Facebook, you're probably already making a reservation.

This is the unique advantage of Facebook recommendations that no other review platform can replicate. The social graph transforms a generic endorsement into a personal one.

There are practical implications for how you think about your Facebook presence:

Visibility compounds. Each recommendation has the potential to appear in the news feeds of that person's friends. A customer with 500 Facebook friends who recommends your business is, in effect, a micro-influencer for your brand.

Accountability raises quality. Because recommendations are tied to real Facebook profiles, people are less likely to leave frivolous negative recommendations than they might be on anonymous platforms. The recommendations you do receive tend to reflect genuine experiences.

Targeting becomes possible. Facebook's advertising platform lets you target people who are friends with your existing customers. If someone has recommended your business, their friends are a warm audience for your ads. This is a direct connection between your organic recommendations and your paid advertising strategy.

Managing your Facebook recommendations alongside your other review platforms doesn't have to mean logging into multiple dashboards every day. Tools like Reputic aggregate recommendations and reviews from Facebook, Google, and other platforms into a single view, so you can monitor and respond without the context-switching.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I delete a negative Facebook recommendation?

You can't delete a recommendation yourself. If a recommendation violates Facebook's Community Standards (spam, hate speech, irrelevant content, fake accounts), you can report it to Facebook for removal. Otherwise, your best option is to respond publicly and professionally. A thoughtful response to a negative recommendation often does more for your reputation than the negative recommendation does against it.

What happens if I turn off recommendations on my Facebook Page?

Turning off recommendations hides all existing recommendations from your Page and prevents new ones from being submitted. Existing recommendations aren't deleted; they're just hidden. If you turn recommendations back on, they reappear. The tradeoff is that you lose all social proof while recommendations are disabled.

Do Facebook recommendations affect my Google ranking?

Not directly. Facebook recommendations don't feed into Google's local ranking algorithm the way Google reviews do. However, Facebook Pages do appear in Google search results, and a Page with strong recommendations can influence how potential customers perceive your business when they find you through Google.

How do Facebook check-ins relate to recommendations?

When a customer checks in at your business location on Facebook, they may receive a prompt asking if they'd like to recommend your business. Check-ins don't automatically create recommendations, but they create an opportunity for one. Encouraging customers to check in, especially at the point of a positive experience, can increase your recommendation volume.

Can I respond to a negative recommendation privately?

Facebook doesn't offer a native private response option for recommendations. Your only tool is a public reply. If you want to take the conversation private, include your contact information in your public response and invite the customer to reach out directly.

Should I ask every customer for a Facebook recommendation?

Ask customers who've expressed satisfaction. A blanket ask to every customer, regardless of their experience, can backfire if unhappy customers use the prompt as an opportunity to leave a negative recommendation. Focus your asks on moments of genuine positive interaction.

How do Facebook recommendations appear in Facebook search?

When someone searches for a business type in their area on Facebook (for example, "coffee shop near me"), Facebook surfaces Pages with strong recommendation signals. The percentage of people who recommend your business and the total recommendation count both factor into this visibility. More recommendations generally mean better placement in Facebook's local search results.

Building Your Facebook Reputation for the Long Term

Facebook review management isn't a one-time project. It's an ongoing practice that compounds over time. Each recommendation you earn, each response you write, each check-in you encourage adds to a body of social proof that works for your business around the clock.

The businesses that do this well share a few habits: they respond quickly, they ask consistently, they treat every recommendation (positive or negative) as a conversation worth having, and they connect their Facebook presence to their broader reputation strategy rather than treating it as a separate silo.

Start with your Page settings. Make sure recommendations are enabled and your Page is complete. Then build the habit of asking satisfied customers to recommend you, responding to every recommendation within 24 hours, and checking your Page notifications daily.

The social proof you build on Facebook is different from what you build anywhere else. It's tied to real people, real relationships, and real communities. That's worth taking seriously.

Ready to take control of your online reputation across Facebook, Google, and every other platform where your customers are talking? Start your free trial with Reputic today. No credit card required.

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