Reviews and Reputation Marketing

Recently, Facebook announced they were removing the Reviews tab from Facebook Pages entirely. Instead, Facebook hopes to encourage conversation and feedback “through posts and comments on your Wall.” According to Inside Facebook, the Reviews tab app will be removed from pages entirely on October 31, so it is a good idea to copy and save your content right away. In fact, Facebook recommends you do so because once the tab is gone, the content will be lost.

For most local businesses, the removal of the Facebook Reviews tab is no great loss. Local businesses especially are more focused on getting reviews on recognized third-party sites that index in search engines, so the vast majority of their reviews content resides outside of Facebook. However, it is still important to feature reviews on your Facebook  page for the same reason that you should feature them on your website: Conversion.

Facebook pages are high-ranking online destinations for your business, and as such they should be optimized as much as possible to convert web traffic into actual customers. To that end, very few things are as effective as verified customer reviews. In fact, consumers are about 49% more likely to use a local business after having read their positive reviews. So, especially if you have already built up reviews content online, it is imperative to put that content on your Facebook Page.

Here are 2 tips for featuring reviews on your Facebook page:

1. Download a Reviews Tab App

Many customer reviews services, such as Customer Lobby, include Facebook applications as part of their product suite. Typically, these reviews tabs display reviews content dynamically, so new reviews automatically appear on the tab. In some cases, your customers can even write you a new review right on the tab through their own Facebook accounts.

2. Post Reviews to Your Wall

One of the most effective ways to feature your reviews on your page is by pasting links to your best reviews on your Wall. When you paste the link to your review as a status update, allow the content to display, then edit the content of the status update before posting. When possible, make sure to include a short snippet of the review and a title. The benefit of posting your reviews as status updates is that they can be seen prominently on your wall. Also, when a fan likes or comments on your review, it can appear in the Newsfeed of their friends, which is an incredibly impactful brand impression.